Every now and then, This Morning plays host to scenes more reminiscent of a fever dream than daytime telly, with one such bizarre moment playing out during Wednesday’s live broadcast.
The latest instalment of the ITV show saw crime author Lynda LaPlante paying a visit to the studio to discuss her latest book with guest hosts Andi Peters and Rochelle Humes, but the pair couldn’t let her leave without introducing a special guest.
“Hugo, your dog, is over there, and we’ve seen the videos where he will howl” Andi explained, with Rochelle interjecting: “He sings! I don’t think we would call it a howl. He is an operatic singer.”
Andi continued: “We’ve got some operatic music, we want to see if he will sing. And he is only 16 months old.”
Lynda then told the pair she first found out about Hugo’s unique *ahem* gift during an episode of The Gilded Age, where he began singing along with the classical music in the background.
With that, producers began blaring out an instrumental version of God Save The Queen to see if Lynda’s enormous canine pal felt like singing along.
Evidently not feeling patriotic at first, he initially remained silent, before letting out one long note, much to the amazement of Rochelle.
However, Hugo was apparently not feeling at his most musical, as he then wandered off set, disinterested.
“He does it now to anything,” a proud Lynda then enthused. “Adverts, he’s off. He can actually do different levels! So to see him actually do it here…”
“It works, doesn’t it?” Andi then enthusiastically responded.
We’ll let you be the judge of that in the clip above.
Of course, regular This Morning viewers will know the show is quite often home to slightly surreal scenes.
Last month, amid ongoing chaos in the government, This Morning held its annual “forest festival’ special, while earlier in the year, Phillip Schofield and Josie Gibson interviewed a man and his enormous potato (which, as it turned out, wasn’t even a potato after all).
This Morning airs every weekday from 10am on ITV.