Big Brother narrator Marcus Bentley: ‘Fans will be thrilled with the effort put into the reboot’

Virgin Radio

7 Oct 2023, 14:39

The infamous voice of Big Brother, Marcus Bentley, has given his reaction to ITV taking on the influential reality TV series after five years away. 

Marcus will be back providing his signature northern accent to the ITV reboot, which kicks off this Sunday (8th October) across ITV1, IVT2 and ITVX. It will then continue every night, Sunday to Friday for six weeks on ITV2 and ITVX. 

As the original voice behind the cameras, Marcus was the Big Brother narrator from its birth in 2000 on Channel 4 and for every series after, including those on Channel 5. 

While Big Brother can easily be considered one of the most genre-defining shows of the early noughties, paving the way for shows like Love Island, the series suffered somewhat of a slump in its latter days. The final series of Big Brother gathered on average 1 million viewers, while the first series by comparison garnered on average 4.4 million. 

Will ITV be the one to raise Big Brother from its TV grave? According to Marcus, it’s very likely. 

The brand new series kicks off on Sunday (8th October) at 9pm, but before then, the iconic voice-over artist sat down with virginradio.co.uk to share his thoughts on ITV picking up the show, and described the broadcaster as “the right home” for the beloved social experiment. 

“I was so excited, I got goosebumps when the promo came on,” Marcus said. “Big Brother has been missed, not just by me, but by the fans, by the public. A lot of the public from the Channel 4 Days are very interested, particularly from the Channel 4 days, are so excited for it to be coming back. 

“I knew in ITV's hands, it was the right place, the right home for it, and that they were going to treat it with such respect and wit and that it's just such an amazing channel. That's proved to be the case.”

It wasn’t long before Marcus spotted that “the buzz out there was unbelievable” when talking about the new show, and teased that ITV will make the show “even better, and I’m so grateful.”

He continued: “I've never been involved on any of the channels where there's been so much buzz and the way that I've never done so much pre-Big Brother work on lots of things. I know the Big Brother fans are going to be very thrilled at the amount of effort being put in…it will pay off and I know it will, and I'm so excited.”

While the original format, and Marcus, will be coming back for BB23, two new faces will be AJ Odudu and Will Best, who will take over hosting duties. 

The original Channel 4 series was presented by iconic host Davina McCall from the show’s inception until series 11 in 2010. Brian Dowling then took over for two series on the new home of Channel 5, before Emma Willis picked up the reins from series 14 until the final series in 2018. 

Speaking to virginradio.co.uk and other press ahead of Sunday’s launch, AJ revealed the likes of McCall, Willis and Dowling all gave them the “seal of approval.”

Big Brother will begin airing on ITV1, ITV2 and ITVX at 9pm on Sunday, 8th October. It will continue every night, Sundays to Fridays, for six weeks on ITV2 and ITVX.