Olivia Colman narrates the first run of ITV’s blunt social experiment in which six famous faces move to a working farm and survive without refined sugar for three weeks. The 2016 debut series corralled actors, presenters and a ballet dancer to muck out pigs, milk goats and cook from scratch while their glucose levels were monitored by a white-coated nutritionist who delighted in confiscating contraband cereal bars.
Each hour-long episode charts the inevitable caffeine withdrawal tantrums and midnight raids on the vegetable patch, intercut with talking-head confessionals where the celebs admit they previously thought agave was a river in Spain.
Ratings held steady above two million, enough for ITV to order a tighter four-part return in January 2017, this time fronted by Helen Baxendale and relocated to the Cotswolds with a cast heavy on soap veterans. The second run ditched the pseudo-science lectures and leaned into competitive cook-offs judged by the farm’s taciturn neighbours, producing the show’s most memorable moment when a former EastEnder accidentally set fire to a beetroot tart.
Production wrapped for good on 31 January 2017, leaving the barns sugar-free but the tabloids happily supplied with before-and-after bikini shots.
Production Details
ITV / 2 Seasons / 7 Episodes / 2016
Main Cast
