Ant and Dec have revealed the challenges of presenting Saturday Night Takeaway from home, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The duo have been forced out of the studio they usually host the live variety show from each Saturday night due to social distancing.
Last week saw the boys present some classic Takeaway moments from their respective living rooms, which they will do again this weekend for the final episode of the series.
However, it has not been as easy for Ant and Dec as people might have thought.
Speaking to Dermot O’Leary on Radio 2, Dec said: “We bought a couple of new mobile phones and had them broadcasting to the nation.
“It’s very different... I’ve got [Ant] on a video conferencing line, just out of shot, and I’m doing it there and you’re just praying that all the technicals hold up.
“You’re trying your best, and you want it to feel like it’s free and easy and ‘you’re welcome in my home’, but actually there’s a huge amount of nerves because you think, ‘Is all this going to hold up? Is my Wi-Fi going to hold up? Everybody, off the Wi-Fi!’”
Ant added: “It’s true. It looks kind of dead easy... but it’s not. There’s a lot more going into it than that.
“And you try to [show] the best part of your house, the best kind of corner to show – [which] you don’t want to show too much of but – you want to say, you know, I want it to look good on the telly.”
Ant and Dec originally tried to carry on hosting the show without a studio audience, but Dec said: “It just got to the point where we couldn’t carry on bringing that number of crew into the studio. And it was impossible then to maintain social distancing and to do the show. Ant and I stand next to each other, but then to stand next to each other two metres apart, we couldn’t do it anymore.”
He also described the experience of having no live audience as “pretty nerve-wracking”.
“For us, doing those items, so much of our show relies on the audience and we feed off the audience,” Dec said. “So going live without them was pretty nerve-wracking for us, and we’ve just wanted to bring the best show that we could in those circumstances.”
Saturday’s final episode of Takeaway had originally been due to broadcast live from Walt Disney World in Florida, but plans were cancelled last month before social distancing rules came into place when the park closed its doors.
Over 300 lucky viewers were also due to be flown out to Florida and join the telly duo at the spectacular, after winning Places On The Plane over the course of the series. However, ITV said it would still honour the winners’ prizes at a later date.
The final show of the series will now feature repeats of Dermot O’Leary’s I’m A Celebrity...Get Out Of Me Ear, the boys’ Undercover prank on James Corden and the End Of The Show Show that saw them revisit their pop star roots and perform as PJ and Duncan.
Stephen Mulhern will also be joining the boys via video link for the last Ant vs Dec of the series.
Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway airs on Saturday at 7pm on ITV.
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