TAKE IT AWAY, THE LADS! (AND LASSES)
ANT AND DEC ARE HERE TO SAVE OUR WEEKENDS THEIR AS FUNPACKED SHOW RETURNS…
DON’T GIVE ANYTHING AWAY, LET IT BE A SURPRISE !” DEC
ANT & DEC’S SATURDAY NIGHT TAKEAWAY | ITV SATURDAY
We’re hopefully still giving you the happiest 90 minutes of the week!” grins Declan Donnelly, as he and presenting partner Ant McPartlin prepare to bring their beloved Takeaway series back to our Saturday nights. “We’re really looking forward to getting back into the studio. Although we won’t have a live audience, we’ll have a brand-new virtual one – so the show will look and feel different. But we’re going to make the best show we can!”
All of the award-winning duo’s usual top-quality family entertainment (Win The Ads, Undercover, I’m A Celebrity… Get Out Of Me Ear!) is in store, along with their co-presenters Stephen Mulhern and Fleur East. There’ll also be a load of new guests, stunts and surprises (including a new mini-series: Double Trouble, with stars including Bear Grylls, Rob Brydon and Alison Hammond) – plus, for the first time ever, an exclusive show on the ITV Hub featuring extra interviews and behindthe-scenes gossip! Phew!
So there’s a lot for us to look forward to, as the lads themselves reveal…
Welcome back to Saturday night, guys! Has this latest series taken a lot of planning? Ant Going that extra mile to surprise people at home and in the audience is a constant throughout every series, and we want to make sure that continues – we’re looking at the technology so that we can still have the same interaction. It’s what Takeaway does best! Dec We work on the show all year round, so we have some new stuff lined up. And with the virtual audience we’ll see people at home, having their tea while the show is live.
The last series was still on air as the pandemic first escalated – what was that like?
Ant Doing the live show without an audience was scary! We did the last two remotely from home, doing our best to keep the show on air.
Dec We decided that after years of the audience inviting us into their living rooms, we’d invite them into ours! It was challenging, but we were all in it together.
What can you tell us about what’s in store this time? Dec We’ve got some very funny Get Out Of Me Ears lined up. There’s Davina
McCall making a new fitness app, obviously all made up by us, and there’s Harry and Jamie Redknapp opening a new restaurant, which Harry wants to be an East End café, and Jamie wants to be a bistro. Ant Our friend Sir Mo Farah is also doing a GOOME – it was one of the loudest and longest we’ve ever laughed because… Dec …don’t give anything more away, let it be a surprise! [Laughs] We’ve got some brilliant Undercovers as well – there’s one with someone who knows us incredibly well, so that was nerve-wracking!
What about the End Of Show Shows? Ant We’ve had to look at them slightly differently because of restrictions, but we’ve got some really good names lined up…
Dec We had loads of ideas last year, when we assumed that we’d have a live audience this time round, so of course we’ve just had to rethink everything! But having to do that opens up other creative ways of doing things, which is always exciting.
And your old pal Stephen Mulhern is back, too… Dec Unfortunately, yes, he’s back! [Laughs] He’s doing Ant vs Dec, which has a sporting theme as we’re in an Olympic year. So Stephen has been sitting with our producers coming up with hair-brained games for us to play against each other. It’s really nice, though, as we can leave that part of the show to him!