We have everything from eating pets to scandalous goings-on in the bath
Celebrities confess their darkest secrets in new comedy panel show Unforgiveable. Danelle De Wolfe discovers more from presenter Mel Giedroyc
Cringeworthy confessions make for great television– and when those revelations come directly from the mouths of renowned celebrities, our interest is piqued still further. hosted by presenter and comedian Mel giedroyc alongside co-host and fellow comedian Lou Sanders, new Dave series Unforgivable does just that.
Uncovering a range of stories – from the relatively mild through to the downright shocking, the show relieves celebrities of long suppressed secrets without the need to set foot inside a church confessional.
Described by Mel as “a gleeful celebration of the outrageous”, the series features a plethora of celebrity guests from across the world of entertainment, including the likes of graham norton, Jennifer Saunders and gemma Collins.
“i thought ‘Come on, i’m 52, this show is the best fun i’ve had in ages, it’s time to let rip’,” says the Children in need and former Bake off presenter.
Ahead of the first episode of Unforgivable on Dave on February 2, Mel tells us more about the show.
How does the show work? we have three celebrity guests on every show and the aim of the game is that the person who can make themselves most unforgivable, wins the show.
The scoring system is really quite complicated. it involves minus points. The lower the score, the better you’ve done. And you will achieve that by spilling the worst things about yourself. So that, in a nutshell, is what it is: show us what a horrendous person you are.
There must be memorable stories? we have everything from eating pets to scandalous goings-on in the bath – there are a fair amount of poo stories.
There are childhood stories which are always brilliant and often quite charming because when you’re a child you don’t have quite the same sort of moral compass or sensibilities that you have as you get older.
Any standout guests?
Jennifer SAUNDERS, who i absolutely adore; she’s hilarious. And it was so good to hear stories from her because she can actually be a shy person and she doesn’t do that many shows like this.
graham norton was absolutely wonderful. i love the way he doesn’t shy away from telling stories about himself... gemma Collins was superb too – such a great storyteller with amazing timing.
What is it that sets this show apart? you get to see some comedians who maybe we haven’t seen enough of yet. Some brilliant comics of the future, and i was all for that. it’s really important and it gives the show completely different energy – a bit of spice.
And there are audience confessions too? the public confessions are more left-field, surreal and madder than you could ever make up. it’s always the way, isn’t it, that the stuff from real life is the most outrageous.
i hope the show taps into that in a very celebratory way because it’s a celebration; it’s not trying to make anyone look really bad. it’s gleeful rather than condemning.
It must have been fun working with Lou Sanders? i Adore her. i love her as a stand-up, and i love that she’s so different from me. Sue (Perkins) calls me The onion because there are so many layers to get through before i will actually say what i’m properly thinking or feeling. whereas someone like Lou talks openly about everything. i admire that.
i call her the Keeper of the Filth. She’s my co-host and essentially the PA of the show: she holds the knowledge, she holds the book. She’s like a filthy richard osman to my Alexander Armstrong.
And you make some confessions yourself, don’t you? yes. god, i can’t remember what. Did i say anything terrible? i did make a confession about working in catering on a friend’s short film. everyone was working for free: the actors, the crew. Sue (Perkins) and i did it together and we’d been slaving away, making food and snacks and drinks to keep everybody happy.
There was this actress – i can’t actually remember her name, she came to nothing!
– and she had the audacity to come up and complain about something. And i thought, right buddy, you’ve complained to the wrong person because i’m in charge of the food. So i snotted into her pasta and presented it to her.
i felt really bad though because she came up at the end of the afternoon and said it was really delicious! But, you know, i’ve been a waitress and i’ve worked behind bars. That sounds like i worked in prison. i mean bars as in pubs.
i’ve done so much of that in my life and i had such a short fuse with rude customers or people that were badly behaved. never, ever treat a waitress badly. you’ll end up with snot – or worse – in your food.
Did Coronavirus play havoc with filming? the first lockdown was called literally on the day i was looking at costumes and going through scripts, and the guests were due to come the next day. So we were all sent home. gutting.
Then we managed to do it in october just before the next lockdown which was so lucky. we got in under the wire. And we were allowed a small audience. i think it was all beyond our wildest dreams, and we’d all been locked up for so many months.
Unforgivable starts on Dave on Tuesday at 10pm.