PAN, CAMERA… ACTION!

An episode of

takes a whole week to film. A morning crew will arrive first at 9am, switching to an evening crew in the afternoon. They will film everything that happens, with the exception of a couple of short breaks.

Each contestant is given £125, but can choose to spend more or less.

Taxis usually pick up the guests from their homes at 4.30pm, although this can depend on the location, and when they arrive at their destination they might have to wait up to 20 minutes before knocking on their host’s door so that each guest can be filmed arriving individually.

It can be a long evening – the host is filmed at various points over the night, while contestants are filmed after the main course and at the end of the evening when they give their scores in the taxi. There can be up to an hour’s wait between courses.

The evening usually finishes with the guests filming their taxi interviews at around 11pm, but if things overrun it can be in the early hours of the morning.