I Am What I Am by John Barrowman (white hot kiss .TXT) 📕

through the opening and closing numbers with the dancers one more time. If my schedule permitted, I’d eat lunch with the J8s, Paul and Matt in the Dance Attic’s cafe;18 otherwise, I’d grab something to eat from M&S, while on my way back to the BBC studios to do a voiceover for one of the surprise hits I’d already filmed.

These surprise hits involved catching up with an unsuspecting person, who – unbeknown to them – had been nominated by a friend or family member to perform on TTN. The surprise hits caught on tape the moment when I pulled off a helmet, jumped from behind a screen or – in one young woman’s hit – stopped shampooing her hair, and told them that they’d be entertaining millions on TV on Saturday night.

A typical mid-week afternoon also involved costume fitting for Sunday’s taping of the show. The wardrobe room at the BBC was always lively, with banter flying like bullets and mostly men – and an occasional woman – working sewing machines at top speed. I spent a lot of time considering what I’d wear for the shows because, as you may have noticed when you watched, my suit colour always coordinated with the hue of the stage lights and the sparkle of the set. It’s a variety show. Everything had to pop, including me!

Whenever possible, I travelled to the surprise hits at least a week ahead of the show in which we’d be broadcasting them. When this was not possible, I’d squeeze a trip to North Wales or Ipswich or Brighton into my Wednesday or Thursday of the same week. This meant that some contestants found out about their television debut on the Tuesday or Wednesday, and he or she had to be ready to perform on the following Sunday. In most cases, a family member or a close friend had been in on the hit, so a lot of the arrangements that the person being surprised would have to make had already been handled.

Each hit required a separate crew with its own producer, Katy Mullan, and director, Marcus Liversedge, who would accompany me to the various locations we visited. This crew created all the videotape segments19 for Tonight’s the Night, including the wonderful opening sequence with the crazy dancing silhouette in the windows.20

When I first started working on the surprise hits, the VT crew didn’t realize I was co-producing the show. I’d offer some input on a few of the shots, come up with ideas for how to shoot a hit, or suggest a camera angle or a different way for me to reveal myself to the guest, and they’d look at me as if I was just a meddling control freak,21 even if my suggestion was good one. At one hit, I finally mentioned in passing that I was co-producing, and after that my suggestions were seen in a bit of a different light. We all truly worked well together to produce some great material.

After the first episode of Tonight’s the Night aired, on Saturday 18 April 2009, a few on the crew, and the producers from the BBC, started calling me ‘Mr Saturday Night’. I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but this rates as one of the best.

Following that first broadcast, I read one or two reviews that came across my desk – this is not something I usually do. Honestly, in the words of my friend, Catherine Tate, I can’t ‘be bovvered’. A couple of critics described the show as, and I’m paraphrasing here, schmaltzy and cheesy. My response to those critics: ‘Watch something else.’

I care what critics think – to a certain extent – but sometimes a few of them can be plain old bitchy because they forget (or have never known) what it felt like to sit on the couch on a Saturday night with their favourite family members and a bag of sweets and have a laugh, or a wee greet.22 I don’t do shows for the critics. I do shows for the men, women and families who’re watching together and singing along.

One or two critics compared Tonight’s the Night to Britain’s Got Talent, but it was never our intention to be like or to compete with Simon Cowell’s juggernaut. From the beginning, Tonight’s the Night was different from Cowell’s show because TTN was not making performers into stars. Instead, for one shining moment, Sam Horsfield of Ipswich, or someone like her, got the opportunity to perform on the BBC to millions of viewers and to have her dream fulfilled.

When I surprised Sam, who had given up her dream of performing professionally when her twins were diagnosed as autistic, she turned to her husband, who had nominated her, and with tears filling her eyes, she looked into his overflowing ones and whispered, ‘Thank you.’ I lost it too. If those moments don’t move you, then your heart’s made of Swiss cheese and your head’s full of holes.

For Sam’s hit, the crew and I arrived on a Wednesday afternoon at a local working men’s club, where Sam would later meet with her amateur dramatics group. Sam thought she and her fellow am-dram members were auditioning final candidates for their local production of The Producers. What she didn’t know was that I was one of the actors auditioning: a ‘Norswedish’ man named Bennie, who was the ‘beegist Abba fan evaar!’

The crew and I commandeered two of the club’s private function rooms, one for make-up and costume – as moustached Bennie had to look as if he’d drifted in from the seventies in two-foot-high, glittery, platform-heeled boots that would have broken most men23 – and the other room for the monitors, equipment and VT crew. Inside the rehearsal hall, cameras were hidden, and Sam’s friends prepped for the hit.

The rehearsal took twice as long as usual because I was having too much fun. I insisted on singing Bennie’s audition number twice through, while adding to the routine what I’d decided were Bennie’s