Davina McCall: There’s nobody who doesn’t like Long Lost Family
BAFTA Award-winning Long Lost Family returns for a new series this week. Davina McCall reveals the secrets of its success.
Davina McCall is the first to admit that her TV shows are an acquired taste. The presenter of entertainment fare such as Big Brother, The Jump and The Million Pound Drop is well aware that not everyone likes what she does.
“Programmes I present often polarise people, especially something like Big Brother, where people go ‘I loved it’ and others ‘I hated it,’” says Davina, 47. But there’s one show for which the presenter receives universal praise – Long Lost Family. The ITV series reunites family members who have lost touch, often as a result of adoption.
“There’s nobody who doesn’t like Long Lost Family. We went to the BAFTAs recently and I can’t tell you the number of famous people who came up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, I love it,’” she continues, naming Graham Norton and Julie Walters, among others.
“The other day Paul O’Grady said he was bent over his ironing board sobbing while watching it.”
The other day Paul O’Grady said he was bent over his ironing board sobbing while watching it
Davina is also regularly approached by people on the street telling her their own stories of lost loved ones, and she always urges them to get in touch with the show.
Davina enthuses about the role she plays in the series, which she co-hosts with Nicky Campbell, an adoptee himself who as an adult sought and found his biological family.
Regularly pulling in more than 4.5 million viewers, Long Lost Family starts its fifth series this week. The first episode follows a father and former soldier searching for his daughter, who he had to leave in Germany when he was posted back to the UK nearly 30 years ago.
And a couple who stayed together after giving up their child for adoption search for the son they parted with more than 50 years ago.
Davina was deeply affected by the latter story, of childhood sweethearts Susan and Chris, born in Scunthorpe but now living in Ontario, Canada. Pregnant at just 14 in 1962, Susan was made to give up her baby son for adoption, but, against the odds, she and Chris stayed together.
In one of the series’ most emotionally raw moments, Chris breaks down when Davina tells them that their son, Andrew Field, has been located in Peterborough.
“I was flabbergasted by Chris’s reaction,” recalls Davina. “I didn’t know that was coming and he didn’t know it was coming. His wife had never seen him cry. He just got up and walked off camera.
And actually for him to then come back and share it with us was a very, very brave thing to do.”
Davina explains that she spends much longer with participants than we see on screen – she stayed with Chris until he was ready to return to filming. She also gives participants her mobile number, and they exchange texts and update her with photos.
It’s almost always Davina who meets the person seeking their loved one, while Nicky meets the sought-after person. A high point, says Davina, is telling the seeker their family member has been found and giving them a handwritten letter.
“What I love is when they see the letter and read it and read it again, and the cameras stop rolling and you see them read it again and again,” she says. “And you know in two days that letter is going to be completely worn out.”
Davina says she watches Long Lost Family at home in rural East Sussex with her husband of 15 years, businessman Matthew Robertson, because she wants to see the whole story knitted together.
She gets so absorbed when it’s on, she says, she even stops updating her beloved Twitter account.
But she says that this year she may be watching it on her own as Matthew, whose dad died last year, thinks it might be too emotional.
Even those who aren’t grieving are invariably overcome with tears watching Long Lost Family with its astonishing, emotional stories. Tissues at the ready.
Long Lost Family, Wednesday, 9pm, ITV