BBC EastEnders' Sid Owen breaks out of prison and punished in TV experiment

23 October 2023 , 23:01

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BBC EastEnders' Sid Owen punished after breaking out of prison in dramatic new TV show (Image: Colin Hutton / Channel 4)

An EastEnders legend was caught trying to break out of jail during a new reality TV show on life behind bars, after seeking to escape the hellish conditions of being locked up.

Sid Owen, best known for playing Ricky Butcher on the long running BBC soap, is one of six celebrities to appear in a upcoming docuseries about the prison system in the UK. Produced by Shine for Channel 4, Banged Up sees its high-profile participants plucked from their normal lives and incarcerated in the decommissioned HMP Shrewsbury for eight days.

Their experience will be made to feel as real as possible; with former officers running the wings and reformed ex-convicts assigned to their cells. The aim of the four-part series is to investigate the UK's prison system, and its impact on the criminal, the victim and society as a whole.

EastEnders Sid Owen tried to escape jail while participating in the new Channel 4 docuseries (Colin Hutton / Channel 4)

With both a father and a brother who had spent time inside, Sid was no stranger to His Majesty's Prison system when he agreed to star in Banged Up. The 51-year-old had visited his family in jail multiple times over the course of his lifetime, with his youngest memory dating back to the age of four. Being on the other side of the bars was a whole different ordeal, however, and by Day Two, Sid was determined to reclaim his freedom.

Sid has now revealed why he decided to attempt an escape (Colin Hutton / Channel 4)

Viewers can anticipate dramatic scenes in Banged Up's first episode, when the soap star attempts to escape just a couple of days into his sentence. With the ward busier than usual after lunch has wrapped up, Sid decides to sneak past the prison guards and outside onto the yard. It didn't take long for the TV actor's absence to be clocked, however, and he is quickly apprehended and escorted back to his cell. Officers then force him to change into a gaudy yellow and blue uniform, increasing his visibility and making it harder for him to attempt a second escape. The incident sees the EastEnders icon go head-to-head with the guards, after he initially refuses to put on the colourful outfit, and sets the tone for just how quickly tension can escalate in the "concrete jungle" of prison life.

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"I sort of was joking and I wasn’t…[trying to escape]. You get very little time out of your cell, like an hour, an hour and a half," Sid explained. "After a couple of days I was just trying to get used to it, chat to people, get to know people. But you know, I just wanted a little bit of extra time." Sid was subsequently sent to segregation, a cell of solitary confinement prisoners who are a danger to themselves or others. While the isolation was used as a punishment, it ultimately came as a relief to the former Strictly star.

"That was alright, because I was on my own. It was probably the only bit of downtime that I had," he recalled, before adding that he was grateful for a break from "the noise, the shouting, the screaming, the anger."

Sid also admitted that he felt safer in segregation than he did in the communal areas of the prison, where inmates who have committed crimes of varying degrees are forced to rub shoulders.

"It’s a concrete jungle," he said. "You never feel safe. They’re all big characters. Some serious criminals as well... the whole noise, the shouting, the screaming, the anger, that’s what really gets you in the end."

But when it comes to the worst part of the experience, Sid revealed that missing Father's Day was easily the lowest point. The actor, who welcomed his son Matthew with fiancée Victoria Shore in January 2022, only realized that the special holiday coincided with filming after he'd agreed to do it. "Let’s hope I get some more work but let’s hope I don’t miss my next Father’s Day," he said.

Sid will be joined on Banged Up by a star-studded line up, including Friday Night Dinner actor Tom Rosenthal, Gogglebox star Marcus Luther, singer Hrvy, ex-MP Neil Parish and Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens.

Banged Up begins Tuesday 31st October on Channel 4.

Emma Dooney