Roman Kemp has been appearing on Celebrity Gogglebox with his dad Martin since 2019 and has now lifted the lid on the show’s secrets

Martin Kemp and Roman Kemp featured on Celebrity Gogglebox (Image: PA Features Archive/Press Association Images)

Roman Kemp has revealed the behind-the-scenes workings of Gogglebox, including the show’s “tiny TVs” and the guidance given by producers. The 32-year-old presenter of The One Show and his father, Martin Kemp, aged 63, have been regulars on Celebrity Gogglebox since 2019.

Initially, they began shooting in Roman’s flat, but a dispute with a neighbour disrupted their filming, leading them to temporarily use a show home before settling into an annexe near where Martin, the EastEnders legend, resides with his wife Shirlie.

Martin and Roman Kemp have appeared on Gogglebox since 2019 (Image: Channel 4)

During his podcast You About? with musician Tom Grennan, Roman disclosed that they typically spend about “four hours” each week filming for Gogglebox. He prefaced his revelation by warning listeners that he was about to “ruin” some of the show’s mystique.

Roman explained: “With Gogglebox, and they’ve done it for so many years, I don’t think they mind me saying, you’re not watching the entire show. By the way, if you like Gogglebox and don’t want to listen to this, don’t listen, because it will ruin the show a little bit.

“You watch on a smaller telly, the TV is so tiny, it is a small tiny little monitor that you have to watch it on. And you’re watching TV there and there’s about three cameras in the room with you that don’t have people on them, they’re like electronic cameras.

“There’s a little voice and the producer will talk to you and so on. You probably watch, out of an hour show or movie, 12 minutes. Usually a cut down is around 12 minutes, a lot of the time they’re six or seven minutes.

Shirlie, Martin and Roman Kemp on Celebrity Gogglebox (Image: Channel 4)“If you’re watching a quiz show, you’re only watching six minutes of that quiz show, the best bit. So that’s when we were like, okay, you’ve got to play this.”

Tom, who has also appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox with his dad, pointed out that celebrities “don’t get TV time” if they fail to gauge what the audience enjoys. This led Roman to share how he and Martin figured out their successful formula.

He continued: “You have to figure out what people like watching from you. We found out quite quickly that, literally, the only parts of me and my dad being in it is when one of us is farting, one of us is falling over…what I will say though is that that is our relationship.”

When it came to choosing a location for filming, Martin’shouse became the chosen spot, but not without certain rules for the crew. Martin insisted that the crew “sit outside in a van” and weren’t allowed inside for lunch.

Furthermore, Martin laid down the law with one producer, stating they could only use the house facilities on the condition they sat down. Roman humorously recounted: “Imagine, that poor producer went home and said, ‘Martin Kemp made me have a sit-down wee today’.”