For a new Channel 4 documentary show

Tom Rosenthal has spent the last week behind bars in Shrewsbury Prison.

The Plebs and Friday Night Dinner star was locked up with hardened criminals and  as well as the likes of EastEnders actor Sid Owen and Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens for a new Channel 4 show.

The four-part programme, provisionally entitled Banged Up, aimed  to recreate as closely as possible the reality of being behind bars.   

Participants were locked up in the decommissioned Victorian prison for eight days with real ex-cons – who they could talk to about their experiences inside – and overseen by real former prison guards,

They were  given jobs to undertake such as mopping floors and peeling potatoes, had limited exercise in the prison yard and were subject to body searches. 

Also taking part is former Tory MP Neil Parish, who resigned from Parliament  after it was revealed he watched porn on his mobile phone in the Commons chamber. His defence was that he was looking at a website about tractors before straying on to the X-rated site.

The line-up is completed by Gogglebox star Marcus Luther and singer and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Hrvy. It has been reported that former Health Secretary Matt Hancock was approached, but declined to take part.

The experiment was run by a former prison governor with 20 years’ experience at some of the UK’s most notorious prisons. 

Writing of his experiences in today’s Mail, Hitchens admitted he was  ‘a suburban softie with a la-di-da voice, obviously doomed to defeat in any hard physical confrontation’ but added that after his experience, ‘Men I would once have crossed the street to avoid are now, in a strange way, my blood brothers’.

He added: ‘I would never have voluntarily endured the full horror and real danger of many modern British prisons. But the toned-down version I underwent was quite scary enough’ and said he experienced ‘extraordinary dramas, moving and distressing moments, a real personal redemption, masses of humour and anger [and] times when I was genuinely physically scared and genuinely miserable and yearning to get out.’

However, he said he did not feel he had softened his hardline attitude to punishing those who break the law following his week inside, saying: ‘I still believe strongly that crime must be punished and deterred… Prison is a necessary weapon in the struggle to protect the weak against the strong.’

Owen, who played Ricky Butcher in EastEnders, has previously spoken about how his father was jailed for his part in a robbery when he was a child.

Stand-up Rosenthal, the son of football commentator Jim Rosenthal,  is also working on a new book in which he tries   to circumnavigate the world without spending a penny on travel.

Instead, the comedian is hoping to cadge a series of lifts… and in return for each one he will grant a ‘fair and equal favour’.

When the project was launched he said:‘I never thought I’d get the opportunity to write a book, and I still don’t, because I’m fairly convinced I’ll die attempting to write this one.’

Published: 26 Jun 2023