As Celebrity Gogglebox Returns, How The Show Became Vital Lockdown Television

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.

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