The Rundown: Block casting goes back to basics, Love Island’s host swap and a tipsy radio anchor
A fourth season of reality TV show Love Island is yet to be confirmed, but that hasn’t stopped rumours about a cast shake-up from spreading.
Fiona Byrne
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The Rundown is your new weekly sneak peek behind the scenes of TV and radio.
Is a battle of the blondes brewing over Love Island?
While Channel 9 is yet to announce whether Love Island Australia will return for a fourth season later this year, an interesting rumour was rumbling last week – that if the show returns Abbie Chatfield might be in the hosting hot seat rather than Australia’s resident TV bombshell Sophie Monk.
Chatfield is the “it” girl of local entertainment right now.
Her podcast is flying, she has a national night show on the Hit radio network and she is becoming a guest panellist go to for shows like Would I Lie To You and The Hundred.
Surely it can’t be long until someone puts her in as the host of a dating/looking for love show – that has to be on the cards for a pilot or series this year.
Monk is also a regular panellist on The Hundred and is host of Nine’s surprise hit of 2021 Beauty and the Geek.
She has hosted three seasons of Love Island Australia and does the role with ease. Presumably the job is hers as long as she wants it.
And she is definitely back as host for the next season of Beauty and The Geek.
BLOCK’S CASTING TWIST
The Block is set to placate grumbling fans and disgruntled reality wannabes with a casting twist this season after 40,000 people applied to be part of the show.
Last year’s Fans v Favourites saw two former Block teams – they being Ronnie and Georgia Caceres and Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie – return and Love Island’s twins Luke and Josh Packham add some celebrity attitude and eye candy to the show.
But the clever casting meant there was only room for two teams of Block “newbies” to get a crack on the hit program.
That fact was not lost on serious fans of the show and even some who had applied for the show. There were plenty of comments on social media when the cast was announced last year decrying the return of the fans and lamenting how slim the chances were of snagging a role on the show.
This year, as the show makes a green change, moving from Melbourne to South Gisborne, it is all new, fresh faces taking on The Block challenge.
“We have just done a Fans v Favourites series so we have been really conscious not to go down that path,” The Block executive producer Julian Cress said.
“We have just given some former Blockheads another shot at it (in 2021) so it’s really time to make sure we offer it to newbies, because we do get 40,000 applicants.
“We have an amazing array of people to choose from. When we get down to five (teams) we are pretty excited.”
The Block will start filming in April – a later than usual start because of paperwork holdups.
“We had a bit of a delay with permits,” Cress said.
“Not council related, more like plan of subdivision stuff where you just have to sit and wait.
“Whenever we take on something that is the biggest block ever it always comes with challenges, but we love a challenge. We always want to take it to the next level and do something different.”
The Block this year is an enormous undertaking with teams faced with creating mini-farmlets.
“In the first series of the show back in 2003 the contestants (each) renovated 73 square metres of apartment and this year they will be doing 40,000 square metres; each contestant is doing 10 acres so that is 40,000 sq m,” Cress said.
THE DAILY GRIND
It might not be your reality show dream, but everyone has to start somewhere.
The Block has a gig going for a coffee king and the production is serious about getting a good caffeine hit.
A job ad has been doing the rounds for a Block barista with at least two years’ experience with beans, grinds, pulling shots and wielding the steam wand.
“Do you know how to make a killer coffee?” the ad reads.
“Are you fun, confident, hardworking and keen to work in a high pressure, super charged environment?
“And do you wanna do all that on the TV?”
The opportunity notes applicants need to be willing to appear on camera regularly, be available for 30+ hours a week and be able to travel to Gisborne for work, or ideally live within 20 minutes of Gisborne.
BIRD FLIES HOME
Australian reality TV royalty Reggie Bird has returned to the franchise that made her famous.
Bird is going back into the house for the new season of Big Brother.
The show, which will air on Channel 7 in coming months, involves a mix of former Big Brother favourites and new housemates competing to win the program’s top prize.
Bird won the third season of Big Brother and in doing so became hugely loved by the Australian public. Winning that season of Big Brother was life changing but certainly not without challenges.
Also returning is 2013 winner Tim Dormer.
KARL THE SECRET MAFS WHISPERER
Karl Stefanovic has emerged as a secret confidant and dispenser of TV wisdom to harried and discarded Married At First Sight groom Dion Giannarelli.
Stefanovic and his wife Jasmine Yarbrough are great mates with Giannarelli – he and Yarbrough have known each other for 16 years.
Today host Stefanovic, who knows a bit about the ups and downs of TV and life in the public eye, has been the unseen, guiding hand behind Giannarelli’s measured response to his cheating TV “bride”, Carolina Santos, and the wild headlines that followed her revelation that she had hooked up with another MAFS groom, Daniel Holmes.
“(Karl and Jasmine) told me to go out there and be myself and don’t change the person we know and love,’ Giannarelli told Woman’s Day.
“If you just continue being you, then everything should be OK.”
The couple has been checking in on him “every day” since his MAFS ‘marriage’ went off the rails.
Giannarelli’s good mate status with Stefanovic grew out of his longtime friendship with Yarbrough.
“We met in America through a mutual friend and they’re in business together through their shoe line and I was living over there and we just became really close friends, and then when Karl met Jasmine, I became friends with Karl,” he said.
“We holiday together, we catch up all the time. We’ve got a great friendship … they’re lovely, lovely people.”
DANIEL AND CAROLINA OFFEND AGAIN
Married At First Sight’s most controversial couple Carolina Santos and Daniel Holmes have revealed being dressed down by the experts and then booted off the show after disrupting a commitment ceremony was such a turn-on they raced home to consummate their relationship.
The pair, who are now living together in Sydney, had been sneaking around behind Santos’s TV groom, Dion Giannarelli’s, back on the show, but had not been intimate until after the fireworks of last Sunday’s commitment ceremony episode.
“(We did it) as soon as we walked out of the commitment ceremony,” Holmes told the Kyle and Jackie O Show on Tuesday.
Santos revealed they could hardly keep their hands off each other on their Uber ride home.
“We went back (to Santos’s house) had a drink. I looked at her in the eyes and said, ‘We are evicted from the experiment. Let’s have sex’,” Holmes said.
“I said, ‘Of course, I’m on board’,” Santos said.
“(It was) everything, and more than I expected.”
Holmes said being slammed for thumbing their noses at the MAFS experiment was worth it.
“This relationship is the real deal,” Holmes said.
“I said it from the day dot … I said it from early on, I put myself through a lot of scrutiny, and her, to pursue this.”
The pair share a love of going to the gym and having breakfast.
KATH, KIM AND FRIENDS
Noice. Different. Unusual.
Fans of the much loved and often repeated TV series (it seems to be on perpetual re-runs) Kath and Kim would have got much joy out of a photo that popped up on Instagram last week.
Snapped dining at celebrated Prahran restaurant Entrecote were Kath and Kim creators and stars Gina Riley and Jane Turner and their one time co-star Barry Humphries.
Humphries played the mysterious John Monk in the 2005 telemovie Da Kath and Kim Code.
Joining the trio were Mark Trevorrow, another Kath and Kim alumni who played Daryl Lee in the series and telemovie, and Peter Tregear.
Not only are they entertainment legends, the assembled table had excellent taste. Entrecote is one of Melbourne’s most outstanding restaurants.
SURVIVOR’S SILENT TREATMENT
Influencer and entrepreneur Sophie Cachia’s behind the scenes titbits from her time on Australian Survivor keep on coming and keep revealing production secrets.
Her latest nugget of Survivor gold concerned host Jonathan LaPaglia, who may not be as rugged and weathered as he seems on the show and the no talking rule.
“Jonathan stands under an umbrella a lot of the time,” she said.
“There’s an incredible amount of time you aren’t allowed to talk. So much downtime in silence. The space is huge to search for idols.”
A RADIO TIPPLE TOO FAR
It has been a bit quiet in the land of radio, which is probably good for some.
You would hate for people to be bored and start talking about the radio presenter who in recent years enjoyed regularly having a few drinks while on air.
Little sips can become long swigs and that may not end well particularly if you start during the day.
Just imagine what could go wrong … say hypothetically you were wobbly when you came off air, fell over in a meeting and had to be bundled into an Uber and sent home.
Not a good look and definitely something you would never want to pop up in the media.
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