Mitre Studios/Lifted show will be directed by Chris Terrill and exec-ed by Jim Allen 

Ant & Dec’s label Mitre Studios will reveal the work that goes into producing Saturday Night Takeaway in a one-off special of ITV1 and ITVX, co-produced by Lifted Entertainment.  

Ant Dec Saturday Night Takeaway

Award-winning documentary maker Chris Terrill, who has directed BBC2’s The Warship: Tour of Duty and ITV’s Commando: Return to the Front Line, will be embedded within the production for the upcoming series of Takeaway, to capture the multi-format show’s inner workings.  

The doc will be executive produced by Jim Allen, the former long-time RDF Television managing director who is working as a creative consultant for Mitre. 

Allen said: “Big event TV, such as Takeaway, provides pitch perfect, compelling narratives and characters for fly on the wall filming.” 

Hosts Ant and Dec, who recently extended their exclusive deal with ITV, will offer personal insights into their work.  

Declan Donnelly said: “We love watching fly on the wall shows like Drive To Survive which goes behind the scenes of F1, so thought it could be really fun to allow the cameras to see how we make Saturday Night Takeaway.” 

Ant McPartlin added: “We’ll have footage of all the ups and downs, the last-minute dramas that come with making a weekly live entertainment show. 

Lifted creative director Diego Rincón said the show will “pry into every area of the production”.  

He said: “As well as seeing what Ant & Dec have for breakfast on show days, this programme will reveal just how much passion, dedication, planning, creativity and hard work goes into entertaining the nation every Saturday night.” 

Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway: Behind the Screens (w/t) was commissioned by ITV head of entertainment Katie Rawcliffe and entertainment commissioning editor Lily Wilson,” 

Saturday Night Takeaway is entering its 19th series, and its most recent series opened to an overnight audience of 6m (37.1%) in January last year.  

Having begun in June 2002, ending in 2009 and returning in 2013, the entertainment show reached its highest ever seven-day audience of 10.6m in March 2020.