Channel 4 'renews new reality show for second season' before first has aired
Channel 4 is ploughing ahead with filming a second season of a new reality series set in prison - before the first season of the show has even aired.
Viewers will see a string of celebrities surrender their freedoms to speak a week behind bars in upcoming show Banged Up. The celebs will be shown living life like they have been convicted for crimes - living behind bars, facing menial tasks, living alongside real criminals, and surviving under the watchful eye of tough prison guards.
The upcoming season has been filmed at the disused Shrewsbury Prison with real former prison staff taking part - and ex-cons signing up to take part to give the stars an authentic prison experience. The first season is focused on male inmates - and now reports have suggested Channel 4 are rushing through a second season which will see a number of women go behind bars to experience the same treatment.
The second season is already being compared to iconic ITV prison drama Bad Girls which followed a collection of characters living behind bars at the fictional women's prison, Larkhall. A TV source told The Sun: “Channel 4 are pretty sure that Banged Up will hook viewers when it airs, so they’ve been considering this sequel for some time.
EastEnders icon Sid Owen has taken part in season one (PA)
Strictly and YouTube star HRVY is also taking part“And doing a women’s version in a women’s prison and an all female line up of prison staff was a no-brainer. Though, of course, they’ll be watching closely to see what the reaction is to the first series.”
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The cast of season one is composed of EastEnder icon Sid Owen - famous for playing Ricky Butcher - Friday Night Dinner actor Tom Rosenthal, Gogglebox star Marcus Luther, YouTube star and singer Hrvy, former MP Neil Parish and columnist Peter Hitchens.
Hrvy, who Strictly Come Dancing fans will recall was a runner up on the BBC show back in 2020, opened up about his experienced filming the prison set show. He told the Daily Star: "I go to a prison, and I live in a prison environment for like eight days, it’s the maddest thing that I have ever done in my life.
"It was like Love Island, Big Brother style cameras and filming, but in a prison. It was 24 hours a day filming, the weird thing was it was a social experiment documentary but it has that reality TV format with the cameras and I am not used to any of that stuff, I have never done anything like that, so it was weird to have cameras on me 24/7. But I was in a cell, and I mean we are talking like one toilet in a cell, and I was sharing a cell with convicted contract killers, this is mad stuff."
While Peter Hitchens discussed the life-changing experience he underwent while behind bars. He told the MailOnline: "Men I would once have crossed the street to avoid are now, in a strange way, my blood brothers. I would never have voluntarily endured the full horror and real danger of many modern British prisons. But the toned-down version I underwent was quite scary enough.
"[I experienced] extraordinary dramas, moving and distressing moments, a real personal redemption, masses of humour and anger [and] times when I was genuinely physically scared and genuinely miserable and yearning to get out."
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