Love Islanders romp MUCH more than viewers realise, star reveals – on part of show when cameras aren’t rolling

IF you thought the Love Island contestants were naughty when being filmed, you won’t believe what they get up to when the cameras aren’t rolling.

According to the show’s famous narrator, Iain Stirling, before the programme went to air, ITV held “practice” episodes to figure out how the filming process would work.

A collection of villa mates were brought in — who quickly realised they didn’t have to worry about hiding under the covers to get frisky.

Talking on US podcast, So Bad it’s Good with comedian Ryan Bailey, Iain said: “We’ve had dry runs of Love Island when we put people who aren’t going into the show.

“We literally have a three-day practice where people go in and they’re in Love Island but it’s not on telly. It’s sort of crazy, it’s mad.

“And if you think people going on the show get up to no good, imagine what they do if they know it’s not televised.

“Let’s say it’s not that dry in some cases.” It’s hard to believe that Love Island, in its current form, will cele­brate its tenth anniversary next year.

The show has become something of an institution on ITV, producing some huge stars.

Olivia Attwood, Molly-Mae Hague, Tommy Fury and Zara McDermott are amont those who have gone on to have lucrative careers after leaving the villa.

This summer the show had 21 MILLION views in the first week of the new episodes’ release.

From the moment it appeared on our screens in 2015, Iain was there to witness TV history being made.

He recalls: “From the minute I saw the first ever dry run in the UK and watching the girls come in and the guys are lined up and they pick the person and they step forward, I thought, ‘This is brilliant’.”

Wonder if he was quite so enamoured when he saw what was going on in the bedrooms . . . 

Bad boy Vinnie's back

FORMER football hardman Vinnie Jones is transformed into another bad boy for his starring role in the musical version of Only Fools and Horses.

The ex Wimbledon “Crazy Gang” player looks cushty in a suit as Peckham hardnut Danny Driscoll, having a natter with wheelerdealer Del Boy, played by Sam Lupton.

The character, played in the BBC sitcom by Roy Marsden, was one half of The Driscoll Brothers, the infamous gangster siblings who ruled in that corner of South London.

Vinnie will take to the stage at the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo in London as the West End hit returns to the capital over Christmas.

He even ­recreated the moment he grabbed pitch rival Paul Gascoigne in 1988 in a painful pose with Sam.

Rod to trotter home

WHEN Only Fools and Horses legend Nicholas Lyndhurst headed to Hollywood to feature in the reboot of Frasier, fans naturally worried he might never come back.

And those fears only intensified when Nicholas signed up for a second series of the US comedy, playing British Professor Alan Cornwall, an old friend of Kelsey Grammer's title character.

But Nicholas – Del Boy’s long-suffering brother Rodney Trotter in the hit BBC sitcom – told the Radio Times: “I’m just here for the duration of the show. I’ll go home to the UK afterwards, but it’s absolutely wonderful to be here for now.

“I’m in my mid-sixties – at this stage of my career, I wasn’t expecting to be walking through the gates of Paramount Pictures every morning.

“I probably pinch myself every 20 minutes in this job, because working with Kelsey and working in this building is heart-stoppingly wonderful.

“I love the sunshine, that’s been great; I like going to the beach. Apparently, the weather is horrible at home.”

Not such a plonker, is he?

Palin ire at Beeb's 'control'

MICHAEL Palin has revealed that BBC meddling led him to stop making shows with the corporation.

Once the darling of the Beeb, Michael’s career with the broadcaster began with the landmark 1989 seven-part series, Around the World in 80 Days.

But Brazil With Michael Palin in 2012 was his last travelogue for the BBC.

In the Radio Times he said: “There was the feeling that the BBC wanted to interfere a little more, they wanted to control it a little more.

“They had this new way of presenting shows – which I would get absolutely, desperately frustrated with – where they would show, in the first five minutes, all the great moments of what was to come. Because this captured viewers.

“Otherwise, as soon as they see Michael Palin, they’ll switch off.

“The BBC were going in a different direction, and presentation was going in a different direction.”

'Awkward' dance for Joe

NATIONAL Television Awards host Joel Dommett has confessed his opening dance routine at the awards was painful for him.

Discussing rehearsal 0n the Never Have I Ever podcast, he said: “It’s difficult not to be so awkward with a gang of women, I became an absolute mess - not because I was flirting but because I don’t know how to talk anymore.

“There was this lovely lady called Hannah and I had to do this little dance with her and I had to twirl her round. “I grab her under the arms and then I drag her across the stage like a Strictly drag.

“Whilst I was doing that I was going ‘hurgh’’ and she was like ‘could you do that without the noise please?’”

Awkward.

Jack's a mind reader

BRITAIN’S Got Talent star Jack Rhodes will show off his apparent mind-reading skills when he takes his unique brand of magic on tour.

But if instead, he slap a lie-detector machine on some celebrities he knows who he would pick and what he would ask them.

Jack said: “I’d ask Elon Musk if he regrets buying Twitter, I’d ask Donald Trump if that really is his hair and find out if Liam and Noel Gallagher really have kissed and made up, or if it’s all for show.”

He will perform at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Oct 30; Birmingham Town Hall, Oct 31; Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, Nov 2; Albert Hall, Manchester, Nov 3 and Theatre Royal, Brighton, Nov 4.

NEW BBC thriller The Guest will star Torchwood’s Eve Myles and Operation Mincemeat’s Gabrielle Crevy and will be filmed in Cardiff.

The four-parter, about a toxic friendship between a boss and her employee, also features Sion Daniel Young, Emun Elliott and Catherine Ayers.