TwentyTwenty Television, producers of ‘The Choir’ & ‘First Dates’, approached us to make a 2 part reality show about The Ministry of Fun Santa School.
The aim was to make a heart-warming TV show for Christmas 2012, in which we were to train a group of gentlemen from various troubled, dodgy and ‘bad’ backgrounds.
Ultimately we were to transform them into good Father Christmases and show that the magic of Santa can help to turn lives around.
The Ministry’s directors, James Lovell and Matt Grist, were followed by a camera crew as they interviewed an array of mostly unsuitable gentlemen before choosing a group of candidates to work with.
These candidates underwent rigorous training sessions and, through a series of eliminations, we selected the best 5 who were invited to our annual Santa School. Here we whittled them down further to our 3 finalists.
After this we set about the challenging task of attempting to find them work and followed their progress, giving further guidance along the way.
After much pre-publicity, the first episode of ‘Bad Santas‘ was screened on Channel 4 on December 17th (2012).
#BadSantas was trending before Episode 1 ended.
Reviews of the show were positive; and most importantly we managed to find employment for all 3 of the final applicants. We have remained in touch and continue to consider them a part of the Ministry family.
