Stay tuned – the celebs are taking over Gogglebox!
THERE HASN’T BEEN a lot of catharsis available during the last 10 weeks, has there? Confined to our homes by a vicious virus, there’s been irony in millions finding weekly relief by sitting at home, watching others in their homes, on Gogglebox.
Watching the Siddiquis, Malones and Sandifords pick apart Boris Johnson’s now infamous Sunday night ‘Stay alert’ address felt like a religious experience, where we laughed and shouted ‘YES!’ It feels so good, after news reports have left us screaming in fury or flat with grief, to be agreed with on a national stage. Log on to social media and everyone is, for once, agreeing with each other – it’s unprecedented.
It’s no surprise, then, that Gogglebox has become event television since lockdown. Executive producer Tania Alexander understood the importance of keeping the show going where soaps and dramas have fallen. Crew clothed in PPE entered the cast’s homes for two hours while they were out and rigged up cameras that have remained in place for 10 weeks to prevent contact. Crew and editors of the show have had to set up similarly complicated arrangements in edit vans and their homes, with narrator Craig Cash swapping a studio for his coat cupboard to record voiceovers.
‘People tell me the show has made them feel normal during abnormal times and when so much in our lives has changed,’ says Tania. ‘The cast offer a sense of familiarity and the opportunity to laugh out loud at the events we’ve all lived through, however absurd or harrowing. They manage to say the things we’re all thinking and, somehow, that makes us all then feel OK. I really can’t thank them enough for that.’
While the series might have officially ended, there’s now a celebrity run to fill the Gogglebox-shaped hole in our screens. Tania says they will be filmed in exactly the same way, but are up for the disruption because they have nothing but ‘joyful enthusiasm for joining the gang’. One of those returning for the second celebrity series is Denise Van Outen, who says, ‘The fact that there’s no camera crew in the room probably makes it easier.’ Others joining or returning include Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash, Zoe Ball and son Woody, Laura Whitmore and Iain Sterling, and Nick Grimshaw and niece Liv. Denise’s advice for them? Forget the filter. ‘This is why the show’s so good, because it’s real. I’d say just enjoy it and, if you’ve got a thought in your head, say it.’
On a basic level too, it’s a place for much-needed TV recommendations – how many of us have caught up on a series after seeing it on Gogglebox? And the importance of just enjoying some telly chat – now we’re starved of co-workers and friends – shouldn’t be underestimated.
The Goggleboxers feel what we’re feeling – from complaints about housework to poorly judged internet shopping orders to Lee and Jenny’s sweet exchange about how she’ll miss him when she vacates his caravan. Thanks to Covid-19 halting all production, no other show (aside from the news) is really reflecting the lives we’re living right now.
From front rooms like ours, the Goggleboxers have sustained us, calmed us and made us feel for an hour a week that we are in it together. Now let’s see how the celebrities do…
‘Celebrity Gogglebox’ starts on Friday 5 June, 9pm, Channel 4
‘NORMAL PEOPLE’ MANIA has swept lockdowners for the last month – and shows no signs of slowing down. As Marianne and Connell, Daisy Edgar-jones and Paul Mescal’s on-screen chemistry captivated tens of millions of viewers, making it BBC Three’s most-streamed show ever – as well as its raunchiest, with 41 minutes of sex scenes.
Having long since binged all 12 episodes of the Sally Rooney adaptation, fans have been clamouring for more and more from Paul and Daisy themselves – whether it’s poring over the latest pap shots of Paul in those shorts or following an Instagram account dedicated to ‘Connell’s Chain’.
While Paul has admitted that his mesmerising on-screen chemistry with Daisy was ‘not something we could have cultivated’, off-screen, of course, they are very much just good friends. Daisy, 22, has been dating Game Of Thrones star Tom Varey since last year, and they live together in north London (with three flatmates), while Paul, 24, has been self-isolating alone in Hackney, where he moved to from Ireland shortly before lockdown started.
As they’ve watched their social media following grow (between them the actors have accrued over a million new followers on Instagram since the series dropped in April) and their status as bona fide celebrities solidifies, however, they’ve been turning to one another and their friendship to keep themselves grounded amid the madness.
Daisy admitted recently that she had been struggling with this huge, sudden tidal wave of fame during lockdown, saying, ‘It has been strange experiencing it all from my bedroom.’ When Grazia caught up with Paul via Zoom, he said it had been a ‘crazy time’ for both of them, and that he spent ‘a lot’ of time on the phone with Daisy (who he calls ‘Dais’, while she calls him ‘Paulio’). He added that their strong bond – as well as that between the cast as a whole – was ‘testament to the level of love and care that went into making the show’.
The pair regularly post tributes to one another on Instagram. On Daisy’s 22nd birthday on 24 May, Paul posted a series of photographs of his friend with the caption, ‘Happy birthday to this LEGEND!
@daisyedgarjones you are one of a kind. Have the best day ever ♥’ to which some of the more hopeful Normal People stans replied that he should ‘marry her’.
That won’t be happening any time soon, either on-screen (there will be no second series of Normal People, unless the BBC can persuade Sally Rooney to get on-board to write a sequel) or in real life.
An insider tells Grazia that Paul and Daisy have forged a deep friendship but it has never verged on romantic territory. ‘They have become genuine best friends, and it’s been so important that they’ve had each other to navigate this time with, it’s been overwhelming for both of them.’
For Paul, for whom Normal People was his first ever TV role, and Daisy, who had previously had a small role in ITV’S Cold Feet, suddenly finding themselves the most in-demand acting talent has meant a huge Zoom interview tour to discuss the Normal People phenomenon, which saw them appear on The Late Late Show With James Corden in the US and The Graham Norton Show here. Paul told Grazia that directors Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald had told him that the response to the show has been ‘unprecedented’.
Now Paul and Daisy are weighing up their many options for what will come next once lockdown lifts and regulations around filming and workplaces become clearer. Paul told Grazia that there were a couple of things in the pipeline that he couldn’t yet talk about – nor, of course, can either of them fly to LA for meetings just yet.
So for now, fans will have to content themselves with watching Paul and Daisy’s friendship play out online – or waiting for a new post on Connell’s Chain…