Express & Star

Celebs go back to Victorian times at Black Country Living Museum

These famous faces are ditching the celebrity lifestyle to get mucky at the Black Country Living Museum for a new reality television show.

Published

Former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, impressionist Alistair McGowan and athletics star Colin Jackson, are among the celebs going back in time for the BBC show 24 Hours in the Past.

Piles of dirt and muck complete with rotting vegetables were dumped in the attraction's popular Victorian street for the show being screened on April 28.

The museum, which has also been used for filming dramas like Peaky Blinders and Arthur and George, is the venue for the first episode of the four-part series.

Six celebrities are taken back to the graft of Victorian Britain as part of the series to show the lives led by working folk.

Former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe

Other taking part include actress Zoe Lucker, Outnumbered's Tyger Drew-Honey and television presenter Miquita Oliver.

Presenter Fi Glover and historian Ruth Goodman are presenting the show which airs at 8pm on BBC One.

Museum director of communications, Laura Wakelin, said the show was unlike any other filming they have hosted.

"Not only was it filmed in real time over a 24 hour period – meaning there was no opportunity for re-takes and the celebrities bedded down on the floor of one of our 19th century cottages – but they literally turned our coal yard into a dump, complete with mountains of dirt, rotting veg and old bones which took a JCB to pile into place," she said.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.