Each week a different monied twenty-something leaves their Chelsea flat or parents’ country pile and moves in with a household surviving on benefits or minimum-wage jobs. The visitor is given the family’s actual weekly budget—often under £70—and told to cover every meal, utility bill and school-trip request. Cameras follow them round discount supermarkets where they balk at 30p noodles and queue at foodbanks where volunteers explain why the tins have no labels.
The format, narrated by Jessica Ransom, never pretends to be social work; it is engineered culture-clash television. One heir spent £400 on truffle oil the week before trading it for a £5 Iceland voucher; another asked a single dad how to switch on the gas meter. Yet the show’s crude hook—will the rich kid cry over a blocked toilet?—still produces the odd genuine jolt when a participant realises the price of a Starbucks order would replace a child’s broken school shoes.
Five series were shot between 2018 and 2023 for 5Star, with Kalel Productions churning out 47 hour-long episodes on a multi-camera schedule that allowed turnaround in weeks rather than months. Ratings stayed modest, hovering around 200,000, but the title spawned enough spin-off hashtags—“Rich Kids Go Homeless”, “Rich Kids Go Shopping”—to keep the brand alive on TikTok long after broadcast.
Production Details
5Star / 5 Seasons / 47 Episodes / 2018 - Present
Producer(s): Roger Oldham
Main Cast
