| The Alan Titchmarsh Show | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Entertainment |
| Format | Chat Show/Variety |
| Presented by | Alan Titchmarsh |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 9 |
| No. of episodes | 490 (to 11 November 2011) |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | The London Studios (2011–) BBC TV Centre (2007–10) |
| Running time | 60 Mins (inc. advertisements) |
| Production company(s) | Spun Gold TV |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ITV (ITV1/STV/UTV) |
| Picture format | 576i (16:9 SDTV) |
| Original run | 3 September 2007 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | This Morning (1988–present) The Michael Ball Show (2010) The Paul O'Grady Show (2004–09) Paul O'Grady Live (2010–11) |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Alan Titchmarsh Show is a British daytime TV chat show broadcast between 3 and 4pm weekdays on the ITV Network.
Contents |
The programme made its debut on ITV in 2007.[1] It focused on the theme of "The Best of British" focusing on food, entertainment and celebrities in a mid-afternoon slot. The focus of the show later shifted towards gossip, entertainment and a light-hearted discussion of sex tips. The latter was toned down after viewer complaints and a shift to a late afternoon 5pm slot in 2010. The show usually opens with a review of gossip and current affairs stories of the day with regular guests including Gloria Hunniford, Carole Malone, Penny Smith, Nick Ferrari, Janet Street Porter, Jane McDonald and Emma Forbes offering their opinions. The programme resumes the studio debate format at half-past the hour with a "heated" discussion on the main "hot topic" of the day. The programme also includes regular cookery slots with Ainsley Harriot and Rosemary Shrager with Titchmarsh adopting a comical, "hands-on" role as a hopeless cookery assistant. In Shrager's cookery demonstrations, the pair often alternate between bickering and flirting with visual "humour" and numerous double entendres from the host. A wine-tasting panel often features along with items on flower-arranging, pets and gardening, the latter involving Titchmarsh answering viewer's horticultural questions assisted by studio guests. The show usually concludes with Titchmarsh interviewing a major celebrity or public figure and also contains regular musical items with live studio performances. The show is coloured with Titchmarsh's dry. slightly camp style and Yorkshire wit and it is often peppered with risque puns of a mildly sexual nature.
In March 2011, the show returned to its traditional daytime TV mid-afternoon slot for its eighth series between 3 to 4pm after a spell in the "primetime" 5pm slot for a 10 week run. The programme celebrated its 400th edition on Wednesday 9 March 2011. The show returned to ITV1 daytime on 5 September 2011 with a return to its original opening 'starry' titles and theme music.
The show is produced at The London Studios by Spun Gold TV.[2] It is aired Monday to Friday with some editions broadcast live and other editions pre-recorded. Previous series were broadcast from BBC Television Centre.
The programme's discussion of "adult" themes, including a former regular item on sex toys presented by Julie Peasgood have sparked a large number of viewer complaints.[3] In 2010, Ofcom, the media regulator, released figures revealing that Titchmarsh's ITV show has the fifth highest number of complaints of any programme for that year.
The show returned for a third series on Monday 1 September 2008. It featured the start of a competition to find a soprano to sing alongside Jonathan Ansell in the A Night At The Opera tour.[4] From the thousands of hopefuls who applied 8 ladies were selected to sing in front of a judging panel of David Grant, Ruthie Henshall and Jonathan Shalit. The 4 successful ladies Rosie Bell,[5] Rosie Havel,[6] Olivia Safe and Esther Dee[7] faced a public vote on 15 September 2008 and Olivia Safe and Rosie Bell won through. They both sang with Jonathan Ansell Libiamo ne' lieti calici, the most famous duet from Verdi's La Traviata on 29 September 2008 and Olivia Safe won the public vote to appear in the tour of A Night At the Opera during October and November 2008.
From 16 August to 24 September 2010, the actor Michael Ball presented his own chat show also produced by Spun Gold TV which followed a very similar format to The Alan Titchmarsh Show during the latter's summer break. It ran for 30 editions over 6 weeks and was aired 3 to 4pm and recorded at BBC TV Centre.
STV serving central and northern Scotland ITV regions, decided not to broadcast series 3 - Series 7. STV wished to broadcast their afternoon chat show The Hour instead at 5pm. STV also believe the show did not rate well and thus has an opt-out, but it become clear the series was partly axed to a dispute with ITV. In 2011 the dispute was sorted[8] and STV began broadcasting the eighth series in March 2011, the same as the other ITV regions. During the period viewers had to use other means to watch the series including ITV Player or watch the show on ITV1's London feed, on Sky Digital or Virgin Media.
| Series | Episodes | Premiere | End |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 40 | 3 September 2007 | 26 October 2007 |
| Christmas | 5 | 17 December 2007 | 21 December 2007 |
| 2 | 50 | 14 January 2008 | 21 March 2008 |
| 3 | 50 | 1 September 2008 | 7 November 2008 |
| Christmas Special | 1 | Sunday, 21 December 2008 | |
| 4 | 64 | 12 January 2009 | 9 April 2009 |
| 5 | 60 | 28 September 2009 | 18 December 2009 |
| 6 | 61 | 11 January 2010 | 5 April 2010 |
| 7 | 60 | 27 September 2010 | 17 December 2010 |
| 8 | 49 | 7 March 2011 | 13 May 2011 |
| 9 | 50 | 5 September 2011 | 11 November 2011 |
| 10 | TBA | 16 January 2012 | TBA |