One audience member who headed to BBC Question Time filming said they had to be “reminded” to react.
One member of the Question Time audience revealed all (Image: BBC)
One member of the Question Time audience claimed producers “reminded” them when to react, including suggesting clapping. PR company Clareville sent one reporter to filming back in June 2017, when BBC Question Time was filming in Barnet, North London – with David Dimbleby still in the hosting chair rather than Fiona Bruce.
Writing on the Clareville blog, the audience member revealed that the programme is “almost live and is unedited”, and recording “only stops [or is] re-recorded if Dimbleby is told there is a technical issue”. Before going into filming, audience members emailed one question each to the show editor, and around eight out of 200 people were selected to ask their question to the panel.
They said: “Even then only five did get to ask their questions, and one of those was off-air before the broadcast. The panellists are not told the questions in advance.”
Shortly before the broadcast started, audience and technical checks were carried out. Resident floor manager Stan was then forced to remind audiences to react in the practice session. Members of the audience stood in for the panel, with Stan sitting in the hosting chair, during a 25-minute mock debate.
The blog added: “After the first ‘panellist’ spoke, there was silence. ‘How about clapping?’ said Stan. It’s surprising how often we needed to be reminded to react, rather than just listen (or stop thinking about what we might contribute).
The show still had David Dimbleby as host (Image: BBC)
“Now I started to appreciate why we were there early […] we needed warm-ups.”
During the actual programme taping, there was “plenty of keen comment, clapping, mass heckling and even mass booing” from the audience.
The blogger revealed: “Only one member of the audience caused everyone to cringe with discomfort with his rather odd, disconnected rant about deporting students of bogus language colleges.”