BAFTA winning First Dates announces new series and four celeb specials

14 June 2016

 

Channel 4's BAFTA winning First Dates is set to return to our screens after the success of C4's past three years of match-making. This new commission is set to release 24 new hour-length episodes, including 4 celebrity specials from Twenty Twenty productions.

Later this year our favourite team of staff – Fred, Sam, CiCi, Merlin and Laura - will be returning to reopen their doors to a whole host of new, hopeful singles.

Commissioning Editor, Madonna Benjamin adds:

"We're delighted that First Dates continues to go from strength to strength.  This is largely due to the quality of the match-making carried out by the brilliant team at Twenty Twenty. This year over 110,000 people asked to be matched for a blind date in the restaurant. With such a high volume of applications, we believe this is strong testament to the faith First Dates’ fans have in the programme finding them love!"

The four exciting celebrity specials included in the newly commissioned series will include the likes of television presenter Esther Rantzen, reality star Jess Wright, paralympian Will Bailey and Gogglebox’s own Scarlett Moffatt.

First Dates' Executive Producer, Nicola Lloyd said:

"We're hugely excited about the new series of celebrity first dates. It never seems to matter who walks through the doors of the First Dates Restaurant, regardless of status we're all vulnerable human beings and our celebrity series confirms this. We're proud to be able to maintain the emotional integrity of the series through these four unique celebrity episodes. Be prepared for some romantic matches alongside a few awkward encounters."

Over the course of the four celeb specials we will meet a whole host of famous personalities and gain a fly-on-the-wall insight into the thrills, fears and nail-biting excitement of modern dating.