Roman Kemp has “ruined” the secrets of Gogglebox, lifting the lid on the show’s “tiny TVs” and instructions the stars receive from producers. The One Show star Roman, 32, has been appearing on Celebrity Gogglebox with his 63-year-old dad Martin since 2019.
Initially the pair started filming the show in Roman’s flat, but he says a row with a neighbour meant they tried to interrupt the recordings. It meant they opted to use a show home for a while before moving into an annexe on the plot where EastEnders icon Martin lives with wife Shirlie.
On his You About? podcast with singer Tom Grennan, Roman revealed they only spend around “four hours” filming Gogglebox each week. It came as he told listeners he was about to “ruin” the show’s secrets.
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Roman said: “With Gogglebox, and they’ve done it for so many years, I don’t think they mind me saying, you’re not watching the entire show. By the way, if you like Gogglebox and don’t want to listen to this, don’t listen, because it will ruin the show a little bit.
“You watch on a smaller telly, the TV is so tiny, it is a small tiny little monitor that you have to watch it on. And you’re watching TV there and there’s about three cameras in the room with you that don’t have people on them, they’re like electronic cameras.
Martin Kemp and Roman Kemp feature on Celebrity Gogglebox -Credit:PA Features Archive/Press Association Images
“There’s a little voice and the producer will talk to you and so on. You probably watch, out of an hour show or movie, 12 minutes. Usually a cut down is around 12 minutes, a lot of the time they’re six or seven minutes.
“If you’re watching a quiz show, you’re only watching six minutes of that quiz show, the best bit. So that’s when we were like, okay, you’ve got to play this.”
Tom, who also filmed Celebrity Gogglebox with his father, explained celebrities “don’t get TV time” if they misjudge what viewers want. It prompted Roman to explain that he and Martin soon realised what works for them.
He added: “You have to figure out what people like watching from you. We found out quite quickly that, literally, the only parts of me and my dad being in it is when one of us is farting, one of us is falling over…what I will say though is that that is our relationship.”
Shirlie, Martin and Roman Kemp on Celebrity Gogglebox -Credit:Channel 4
While Roman and Martin eventually settled on using the former Spandau Ballet bassist’s house for a base, he had a series of conditions for crew members. Martin told the crew they had to “sit outside in a van” and couldn’t come in for lunch.
He also told one producer they could only enter the property and use the facilities if they agreed to sit down. Roman joked: “Imagine, that poor producer went home and said, ‘Martin Kemp made me have a sit-down wee today’.”
Celebrity Gogglebox will return to screens from 9pm tonight on Channel 4