Lights, Camera, Action!

I know a lot of people hate reality shows especially the talent contests but over the years I’ve loved taking friends to different ones. It’s all just a bit of fun and, to be fair, a relatively cheap day out – train fare or car fuel and a budget lunch!

The very first show we ever went to was at the BBC Television Centre in Shepherds Bush. We took the three oldest children to a recording of ‘Are You Smarter Than a Ten Year Old’? They loved it! Once we’d got our tickets we went to the brand new (at the time) Westfield Shopping Centre at White City, just a two minute walk away, so we were able to do a bit of browsing and have lunch while we waited to go back. We all had a great time. One thing about the TV shows is they keep you entertained from the moment you arrive. The ‘warm up’ guys (I personally have never seen a female one) are always very funny. They are usually stand-up comedians in their own right. That one was particularly hilarious and we felt like we’d gone to see a pantomime! In between filming he got the kids up doing a ‘turn’ and of course our daughter enthusiastically put up her hand! She was nine I think and completely unphased! She sang ‘Mercy’ by Duffy and got a big applause, bless her!

It was really interesting being at the famous television centre. I’d have loved to see the ‘Blue Peter’ garden after all those years! That would have been a classic moment of nostalgia. The warm-up guy also told us that we were in the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ studio. It was much smaller than you’d think although the layout changes according to each show.

I had well and truly been bitten by the bug after that and it was the first of many years of TV adventures. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and a lot of people aren’t starstruck like me but I’ve had some brilliant days out with friends and a lot of fun.

The very first X Factor auditions show I went to with a friend. My niece and her friend came with us because my daughter was under the age restriction at that time. We had to go to the ExCel in London. My niece needed the toilet and we weren’t supposed to be allowed in the first entrance. However, a security man let us go in and didn’t wait for us to come back out so we ended up walking through the centre (we were supposed to walk round it). We were just ambling along when my 18 year niece (far from shy!) suddenly started running and shouting “Dermot!” at which point the presenter Dermot O’Leary turned round, indicated that he was on the phone and said “I’ll be with you in a minute!” We ended up chatting to him for about 20 minutes. He was so friendly and laidback, asking us questions about ourselves. He was being beckoned almost the entire time and was keeping someone waiting but he didn’t seem too worried and we certainly didn’t mind!

Another time we were sat really close to the judges and the head judge was my ‘other husband’ (in another life) Gary Barlow! It was at the 02 but they had reduced the size of the venue with black sheeting. When the judges made their entrance they walked really close to us and I shook Gary’s hand. Actually, that’s quite an embellishment, my friends would say I actually tried to pull his arm off! A girl can dream can’t she?!

We went to audition shows, boot camps, six chair challenges, finals, you name it! At one of the more recent ones we had reasonable seats and were happy enough with where we were sitting when one of the Applause Store people came over and asked if they could move us down to the front! When we got down there they actually only had three seats and there were six of us! We let three of the ‘kids’ (the gorgeous young ones of our group who, let’s face it, were most likely the reason we were handpicked from the crowd….!) have the good seats and then had to wait while they decided where to put the other three of us! We ended up sitting in the row behind Simon Cowell’s family! His little boy Eric was sat in the seat in front of me next to his mum, Lauren Silverman. Also sitting with them was broadcaster and journalist Dan Wootton. It was quite a surreal experience. The best ‘celebrity watching’ opportunity we could have had. Simon was very attentive towards Eric who was wearing enormous protective headphones and also a little girl in a wheelchair who must have been one of his special guests. He gave her a lot of attention throughout the show inviting her to give a thumbs up or thumbs down for each contestant. He’s a big softie really!

The finals have been really good and we’ve had good seats at times. Also there are duets with other artists and guest performances. One year we saw Ed Sheeran, Take That, Meghan Trainor, Labyrinth and former contestant Ella Henderson in the same show! Another year One Direction came back to perform and the screaming was so unbearable I had to put my fingers in my ears! I don’t even know if they were any good because we couldn’t actually hear them over the hysteria of all the young fans! Katy Perry also performed that night and I think the less said about that the better!

I also went to a number of recordings of a Sky show called ‘Got to Dance’. Originally these were recorded in a dome shaped studio at the old Battersea Power Station but it was moved to Clapham Common when Battersea was bought up for development. The audience was only 200 and the stage was circular so there was no such thing as a bad seat. The judges were Ashley Banjo, Kimberly Wyatt and Adam Garcia who I love! It’s all very intimate and Davina McCall came over and spoke to us on more than one occasion. I also went to one of the semi-finals at Wembley Arena. Again we had great seats and it was Adam’s turn to perform that night. I was mesmerised. I love tap dancing and he’s one of the best. That ticked a massive box for me.

I’ve seen my fair share of Britain’s Got Talent recordings too. That’s always a good one to take the kids to as the minimum age is 8. The audition shows are much better than the X Factor as there are usually less of the awful acts! The very first one was my favourite. We had excellent seats in the stalls and a really good view of the judges who walked down an aisle right next to us when they made their entrance. Where we were also meant we could see Ant and Dec in the wings for the whole show. Michael McIntyre was a very funny judge and David Walliams never stops messing about! He’s hilarious. I’ve been lucky enough to get to a semi final and a final too. At the semi-final there was a performance from dance group ‘Diversity’ who did a ‘Greatest Showman’ theme that was amazing. They also did a recording of Stavros Flatley for ‘Britain’s Got More Talent’, a real blast from the past. The last time I went to BGT was with my kids and their friends and we were right at the front. It was one of the few times we’d actually seen ourselves on TV. We also had our first experience of doing an audience vote. We had handheld devices to make our choices. It was BGT – The Champions – with acts from all over the world so they were all pretty impressive. In the same week I managed to secure tickets to the final of that series and went with a friend just a few days later! It was in the school holidays so I had the time!

My other regular has been ‘Take Me Out’ which is filmed in Maidstone in Kent and is an easy one to get to, only about 45 minutes from home. I’m a huge Paddy McGuinness fan and he didn’t disappoint! He’s just as funny off camera as he is on air. Also, even more handsome in the flesh! But even better is the warm-up guy for his shows who is side-splittingly hilarious! Our jaws have ached from laughing at him. It’s not a big studio and we’ve had various seating positions from the very back to right at the front but the best place to be sitting is up next to the staircase where the contestants walk down and we’ve been put there on two occasions. That’s where Paddy spends a lot of his time presenting. In a filming break another of my friends who doesn’t mind a bit of attention did a dance-off with another audience member and won! Her prizes included a ‘Take Me Out’ mug and boxer shorts signed by Paddy! Not quite as impressive but Paddy also handed me a cupcake that night which was part of a prop! I didn’t eat it…..!

Quite early on in my ‘TV audience’ adventures a group of us want to ‘A League of Their Own’ at Elstree in Hertfordshire. Fortunately we had priority tickets because only two people from a massive queue of general admission got in. It would be such a disappointment to travel all that way and not get in. The show was great fun. James Corden is very focussed and professional whereas some of the others are more jokey off camera. I was delighted that John Bishop was one of the guests. At the end some is needed the loo and there was a big queue so it took us a while to leave. It turned out to be a stroke of luck because as we finally left the building we bumped into Freddie Flintoff! He politely posed for photos with us and a VERY brief chat! Jamie Redknapp would have been the icing on the cake (and the cherry to be fair!) but sadly we had missed him.

One time I went with a friend to the recording of a new talent show on Sky 1 which was at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. It’s a fascinating place to visit because as you go in you see all manner of film sets – huge props and backdrops. The show we went to was called ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ and, I’ve got to be honest, it wasn’t great and the series was never repeated but we had the funniest time! There were two recordings that day and when we arrived we were asked if we also had tickets for the second one which was a bit strange! Anyway, they offered us a deal! They said if we would be happy to stand for the first show in a sort of ‘pit’ below the stage where the contestants wait they would get us seats right at the front for the second show. It was a no-brainer for us! While we were there we chatted to one or two contestants, one of whom had been to judges’ houses on X Factor and was pretty good. Amanda Byram was the presenter and the guest on the first show was Sarah Harding (from ‘Girls Aloud’) who had to press a button to randomly choose the next contestant. She was quite demure and did so without too much fuss or ceremony.

After a bit of a break we were seated for the second show. This time the guest was Louis Spence and he was hilarious! I’d always thought he’d be a real diva but he was quite the opposite, very friendly! He came over to speak to the audience and was happily posing for photos. The Sky crew are really picky about cameras and are constantly telling people not to take photos but Louis was having none of that, he just kept encouraging everyone! He’s a very stylish man and you can tell that he has expensive and impeccable dress sense. When the time came for him to press his button, of course he couldn’t just stand unpretentiously, like Sarah did. No, not Louis, he pirouetted, high kicked and jeted before each choice. It got to the point where the producer had to ask him to tone it down because his performance was a little too ostentatious (understatement!) and they needed it to be significantly cut down. He was very entertaining!

A few weeks after we’d been to the Sky show they began advertising it and my friend and I kept getting texts and Facebook messages from people who had spotted the two of us on the TV advert laughing hysterically with our mouths wide open! What a sight! Our phones went into overdrive!

I’ve managed to take my dad to a couple of shows too. He used to go a lot back in the seventies with my mum to watch live recordings, sometimes of sitcoms! The first time all of us went, including the children, to watch ‘The Magicians’ where four of the world’s greatest illusionists are joined every week by a celebrity assistant. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios which is built around an exquisite Manor House and has thousands of square feet of workshop space. It is home to some of the world’s best loved films including 12 of the 22 Marvel films. So you can imagine how interesting it is to walk round with snippets of famous sets here and there. The show was fascinating as being so close to the ‘magic’ is mind blowing. Kimberly Wyatt was levitating right in front of our eyes. No camera tricks as we were watching this live remember. It was truly baffling!

The other one a friend and I took my dad and his partner to was ‘QI’. It was filmed at The South Bank studio in Waterloo which overlooks the Thames. It is a very busy studio where they film, amongst other things, ‘Good Morning Britain’, ‘Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway’ and ‘The Graham Norton Show’. We were tight for time that afternoon and managed to get lost initially! We thought we were going to a completely different place! Consequently we almost had to run to get there, no mean feat with a couple of pensioners tagging along! We had minutes to spare before the cut-off point so my friend and I almost sprinted (I say ‘almost’ as running is not something I’m known for!) and we arrived seconds too late. There was a separate desk for priority members and they’d just closed it. This is where we had to do some serious sweet talking! At first it was a firm NO but a kind lady must have felt sorry for us when we told her there were two ‘elderly’ people almost killing themselves to get there on time! We’d told them how far we’d travelled and how excited they were to see the show. However, they were taking ages and every second that went by was scuppering our chances of getting in. It turns out us wannabe sprinters were so fast that they’d lost sight of us in their pursuit to keep up and had taken a wrong turn! The security people had all but given up when they came round the corner and into sight. I don’t know if they felt sorry for us or were just incredibly impressed by the agility of the two oldies but they let us in, phew! All of this took place in front of the general admission queue who were probably cursing us at minimising their chances of getting in! Stephen Fry had stepped down from the show at this time and Sandi Toksvig had taken over. It was also HER last ever show too so it was quite special. She was lovely and very friendly, praising the audience and chatting to different people between takes. It was a close call but more than worth it in the end especially to see dad’s enjoyment of the experience.

Another great show was ‘Michael McIntyre’s Big Show’ which was filmed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. It was very well organised and we had brilliant seats in the stalls. Michael was funny from start to finish. The ‘send to all’ feature was with Ronan Keating (another of my husbands from another life!). That made my day! It was a really smooth production with hardly any unnecessary hanging about. Strangely though when the show was aired a few weeks later we discovered that they chop it around and edit it so that it’s not one whole show. For some reason they mix up the sections of the show making them a mish-mash of all the different recordings!

In November 2018 I took another friend to BBC ‘Children in Need’ at Elstree Studios. We had tickets for the second (late) section of the show and had booked a hotel room rather than driving back in the early hours of the morning. It was another one where you weren’t guaranteed entry and basically had to stay in the queue. Luckily for us there were only four people in front of us. They only issue a maximum of two tickets and one of the attendees HAS to be the name on the tickets. The ticket specified that proof of ID was a condition of entry. There were two women at the front of the queue who had travelled down from Scotland just for the show. Sadly they were turned away because the lady whose name was NOT on the ticket hadn’t brought ID with her. I realise that it was stated on the rules of entry but I did feel this was particularly harsh. They asked if a friend could send a photo of her passport but the young guy was a bit of a jobsworth (or maybe he simply feared losing his job to be fair) and refused to accept that. It was a time of heightened national security but I’m not sure how not producing an ID posed such a threat. Everyone is searched on entry and you’re not permitted to take any food or drink in with you. I guess those poor ladies learned a big lesson that day – rules are rules, especially in TV world!

With such a long wait in the queue we managed to make some new ‘Friends’ – two sisters from the Midlands and a mother and son. It’s amazing how much you can find out about each other in a few hours! It meant the time passed by much more quickly and we laughed so much with them. As we got nearer to going in we started to see celebrities arriving. We were just behind the entrance barriers and a check-in hut. We spotted a few well-known faces such as ‘Newsround’ presenter John Craven and ex-One Direction singer Liam Payne.

We were eventually taken into a holding room where we could buy food, drink and merchandise, ‘Pudsey Bear’ headbands etc! It was also an opportunity to go to the toilet and have a sit down if you were lucky enough to find a spare seat. Our little group stuck together and lined up with each other when we made our way into the studio. As we stood in yet another queue, the 1990s Children’s BBC double act ‘Dick and Dom’ walked past us. The young guy in our group couldn’t help himself and shouted out ‘Bogies’! Someone had to! You may only understand this if you are young enough to have watched ‘Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow’ in the early noughties!

We were surprised about two things on entering the studio. Firstly it was very small! It looks so much bigger on the TV. Secondly we had to stand! Our feet were very weary by now but adrenalin gives you a second wind and we soon forgot how long we’d actually been standing for! The show was okay but not amazing! Marvin and Rochelle Humes presented that section of it and there were some good acts – Anne-Marie (who’s dancers were amazing), Liam Payne and Boyzone. We had to laugh because our new young friend was about 6 ft 5’ and towered over everyone! His friends would have had no problem spotting him in the crowd! Marvin and Rochelle were ever the consummate professionals, very polished, and happily posed for photos and selfies at the end of the show. We enjoyed ourselves but we probably wouldn’t repeat it. It’s a huge test of stamina!

I have one more TV story but I’m going to leave that for next time…..