tv’s cutest critics!
Loved Gogglebox? Then you’ll adore its pint-sized spin-off, Gogglesprogs — where it’s the kids’ turn to give hilarious verdicts that’ll make you giggle... and their parents blush
My dad’s got TWO wives! Orin, seven
MOST parents know all too well how apt is the old adage ‘ out of the mouths of babes’. Mother- of- two Ellen Llewellyn certainly does. Take the conversation the 38-year- old recently overheard between her nine-yearold son William and his sister Molly, seven.
‘Molly was saying that I liked drinking wine, and William agreed, saying: “I think she finds drinking wine very relaxing — that’s why we have lots in the house.” Then Molly added that it wasn’t just wine, because: “Mummy likes gin and tonic too.” I had to laugh.’
All perfectly true, although not necessarily something Ellen would want broadcast to the nation.
That, though, is exactly what is about to happen, as William and Molly’s observations took place under the scrutiny of assorted television cameras as they watched one of their favourite TV cookery shows.
It’s a formula that has proved an unlikely hit in recent years. While, on paper, the idea of watching people watch television may sound an unlikely entertainment formula, the many fans of Gogglebox — a show which hangs entirely on that premise — will testify that sometimes earwigging on viewers can be far funnier, and more fascinating, than the original programmes themselves.
Make those television viewers pint- sized and the adage applies ten-fold.
Step forward the Gogglesprogs, here for a new six-part series in which we spy on a TV audience comprising a number of people who have to go to bed before the 9pm watershed.
Ranging in age from five to 14, they’ve been filmed watching everything from election coverage to nature programmes, quiz shows to cookery shows, their reactions in turn ranging from sage to sombre and disgust to delight — via the woefully misguided and the often wonderfully funny.
Take Mary Berry’s latest TV outing, Mary Berry Everyday. National treasure she may be, but while many of the children profess themselves ‘huge fans’, they’re not overly impressed with one of Mary’s dishes.
‘That’s burnt,’ declares a grimacing William about her ‘perfect’ rice pudding, while his sister Molly says she is ‘a bit disappointed’ with one of her pies. ‘It looked a bit horrible,’ she says.
But then nothing, says William, beats his nan’s apple crumble: ‘She makes the best,’ he confides.
Chatterboxes William and Molly hail from farming stock in rural Llandeilo, South-West Wales, and both are generally happiest helping out on their grandparents’ nearby farm.
‘In all honesty, they’re outdoor children,’ says mum Ellen, who works in marketing and PR. ‘We live in a pretty small town with walks around. They’re not into screens or laptops in particular. We watch some family stuff together.’
It’s a view confirmed by William himself, who says that while there aren’t any particular rules about TV, if his parents think he’s watching too much, they tell him to ‘Go and play outside’.
‘And that’s fine because I don’t want my eyes to go square,’ he reveals now.
Ellen heard of Gogglesprogs through her husband Jonathan Edwards, a sports television producer, and put William and Molly forward knowing that neither of them would be short of things to say.
‘They’re very talkative,’ she says. ‘And they work well, as they’re very different. Sometimes William is like a little old man, wise beyond his years, whereas Molly is completely the opposite, excited about absolutely everything.’
It’s a dynamic demonstrated only too clearly over discussions about Mary Berry’s rice pudding. While William is complaining about it, Molly has bounced into the kitchen to ask her mum to make it for dinner, and can be heard off camera gleefully announcing — with the sort of high-pitched excitement you might deploy if you’d won the Lottery — that she’s agreed.
William, it turns out, wants to be both a rugby player and a farmer when he grows up. ‘Lots of Welsh rugby players manage to combine the two, so if they can do it then I can too. And if you lift hay bales, that helps you develop big strong muscles.’ Molly, mean- while,while is unsure about what she wants to be when she grows up, although she has a number of wishes.
‘If I had three wishes, I would like all the sweets in the world, and then for my second one I would like Donald Trump to be a bandit and go to jail, and then for the third I would like flying cars,’ she declares.
LITTLE wonder, given such gems, that Ellen can easily forgive their little ‘reveal’ about the wine.
‘It’s been really lovely getting to see them interact when I’m not there,’ she says. ‘William is such a good big brother. I was really touched to see that if there is anything they are watching which Molly finds frightening or upsetting, he is instantly there giving her a cuddle. They’re very close.’
It’s a dynamic which Michelle Pearson, 42, recognises in her own three Gogglesprog children. She lives in Wallasey with 50- year- old husband Michael, who runs a fire safety company,c and their children Jack, 11, Sadie, nine, and eight-year-old Declan.
Their loving dynamic is likely to capture a heart or twoamong viewers. Take their observations on Mary Berry.
‘I would pay her a lot of money if she could be our childminder,’ announces Sadie, licking her lips as she watches her hard at work on one of her dishes.
‘I don’t have much money so I’d give her all my money — but not all Mum’s money.’
Her older brother is a bit more wary: he has ‘a pound’ which he would donate, he professes, but that’s all.
Sadie continues: ‘I wish she was my Nan’ — prompting Declan to get in on the action. ‘But which Nan would you swap her for?’ he asks.
‘It’s pretty typical of their characters,’ says Michelle now. ‘Jack’s the vain one. He’s starting to do Instagram and fancies himself as a bit of a YouTuber so he’s a bit more worldly-wise, whereas Declan doesn’t have a clue what day of the week it is to be honest.
‘He gets shushed down a lot
by the other two, but he seems quite happy with his role.’
Red-haired Sadie meanwhile, is the eccentric one. ‘That’s become more and more apparent as the years have gone by,’ says Michelle. ‘She can read a situation and people very well but she can have quite funny views on things.’
When asked by Declan what she knows about the Queen, Sadie replies: ‘She’s rich, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind.’
Michelle says the Gogglesprogs experiment has been illuminating as it’s shown her that her children enjoy watching programmes she thought would have them reaching for the off button.
All three liked a lot of the science shows — ‘stuff that I wouldn’t previously have considered putting on,’ she says. ‘They loved the Steve Backshall one where he met some ancient tribes.’
That show led to a couple of Gogglesprogs’ funnier moments — such as when, at his home in Manchester, seven-year- old Eli struggled to understand exactly what a group of largely-naked tribesman had under the leaves they were using as loincloths.
‘The programme had subtitles and Eli is a fast reader, so he was reading them for both himself and his friend Orin,’ says Eli’s 31-yearold mum, Maryam Bitrus.
‘They used the word penis on the subtitles but when Eli read it out he said: “Oh, I know what that is, they’ve spelt ‘tennis’ wrong.” I couldn’t stop laughing, but it was also really sweet as it showed he was still quite innocent.’
Orin had his own comic moment when he learned that the leader of the tribe had six wives.
‘He turned to Eli and said, “My dad’s got two wives” — which was news to me,’ says Orin’s mum Carla Jackson, who was watching her son on a monitor upstairs. ‘Thankfully, he went on to clarify that he meant me ( we are separated) and then Stephanie, his dad’s fiancé.’
Carla, 36, a beautician, says her ‘confident’ budding scientist son was a natural choice for the show.
‘Orin is a real performer and he loves to make people laugh,’ she says. ‘He’s very confident in what he does.’
It also made sense to pair him with Eli, his schoolfriend of three years. United by their twin love of dance and science, Orin wants to ‘make the whole world digital’ while Eli hopes in due course to invent some ‘flying shoes’.
Eli is quite the model student in real life, according to Maryam, who runs her own home-baking business from the house in Manchester they share with dad Godwin, 40, who works in airport security.
‘He absolutely loves school,’ she says. ‘He’s pretty much the first in the line to get into the school, rain or shine. He always wants to be first through the gates.’
HER ‘ kind, patient, arty’ boy is certainly not your typical lad. ‘He’s not into football at all,’ she says. ‘It’s his worst nightmare; he’s into playing his piano and his ukulele.
‘I think because of my business he also likes watching baking shows.’ Viewers will quickly see that he’s a natty dresser, too, showcasing hats and bow ties.
Maryam says that her son’s appearance on Gogglebox is a little ironic, as during the week he’s not allowed to watch any TV.
‘I’ve done that since he started nursery. I grew up like that and it didn’t do me any harm,’ she says.
Back in Wallasey, meanwhile, Michelle discovered that her daughter Sadie was perhaps even more knowing than she thought.
‘There was a show which talked about rhinos being poached and that they could be sold for £ 250,000,’ she recalls. ‘ Sadie chipped in saying if it was just one, she would do it for that.
‘I was shocked, as she’s a massive animal lover normally. It was an “oh- my- goodness” moment — although she did take it back when she saw the horrified look on her brothers’ faces.’
Nonetheless, Michelle says she wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. ‘For me to sit down and see the kids watching TV together is a lovely thing.’
And there is good news for both of Sadie’s grandmas: it turns out she won’t swap either of them for Mary Berry after all. ‘I’ll stick with the ones I’ve got,’ she says now.
Mum my likes drinking wine ... but it’ s not just wine, it’ s gin and tonic, too Molly, seven Greece is a country isn’ t it? So why would they call a film Grease? And they look way too old to be at school William, nine