Back and loving life

A fter a seven-year absence, the perennially optimistic Jason Gunn is back on television doing what he does best.

The 47-year-old Cantabrian, whose last regular TV gig was co-hosting Dancing With The Stars with Candy Lane before it was canned by TVNZ in 2009, is now fronting a Kiwi version of a popular British game show.

You’re Back In The Room NZ, screening on TV2, features a group of contestants who are hypnotised and then ordered to do simple tasks which may win them cash.

“The things that people do under hypnosis are quite incredible,” says Jason.

The show’s hypnotist is Peter Powers, a man Jason says is “amazing to watch work”.

“I wasn’t sure about hypnosis when I started the show,” says Jason. “But when you watch what Peter does and how much he cares about the contestants – it’s like they are his children out there.

“He looks after them so well. It’s not his or mine or the show’s purpose to go ‘Let’s hypnotise you. Go out and make a complete idiot of yourself.’ It’s not about that.

“Some of these things that people say and do are just gorgeous. They’re hilarious.” So what do people really do under hypnosis? “They can be angry or hysterically happy when something happens or they could throw their face into a pavlova,” says Jason. “It’s a mixture of things. There is singing and dancing and it’s quite remarkable.”

Jason, who began in TV when he was 18, made the news in January this year when he broke two vertebrae