The Audience

11 September 2012

In brand new three-part factual series The Audience, a person with a life-changing decision to make is followed round by 50 strangers for a week. When the week is over, The Audience gives their verdict.

Each programme focuses on someone with a genuine dilemma, from: should I give up the family business? should I have a gastric band fitted to should I consider fostering? Unsure what to do, they turn to The Audience for help.

Made by award-winning production company, The Garden (RTS Best Documentary Series 24 Hours in A&E and Seven Dwarves), The Audience brings together a group of 50 ordinary men and women, of different ages, backgrounds and experience, who follow the person or a couple for week wherever they go.

However awkward the atmosphere or small the space, The Audience are there at work, play and home - trying to solve their dilemma.  Sometimes they simply observe, at other times they ask questions. From amusing beginnings firing questions from all angles, to serious, heart-wrenching deliberation - often moving them to tears - together The Audience delve into people's personal circumstances to inform a picture of their lives and decide how to improve it. After a week, they must agree on a decision and deliver their conclusion on the path to take.

For the person with the dilemma it can be an intimidating experience. As they open up their lives to 50 strangers, they don't know if they will face the anger of the mob or the wisdom of the crowd. The process is emotional, sometimes difficult and often eye-opening. And for The Audience holding this enormous responsibility, the process sees them navigate through layers of heartache, resistance and personal revelations, as well as the nights out, kitchens and cramped offices of the people they're trying to help.  

This ambitious, original series explores how ordinary people can be helped to make up their mind and move forward in their life, by a group of people who have never met them, on a truly extraordinary journey.

 

Prod Co: The Garden

Exec Prods: Jonathan Smith and Nick Curwin

Series Prod: Danny Horan

Comm Ed: David Glover