Comic sent into self-isolation

Filming of Jason Manford’s new BBC gameshow Unbeatable was thrown into chaos after the comic was told to self-isolate because of Covid.

The comic received an alert from the NHS ‘track-and-trace’ app that the could have been in contact with a coronavirus carrier just moments before filming a batch of episodes.

And he revealed that give him a moral dilemma.

‘In the middle of the week I get a phone call,’ he told The Sun’s Bizarre column: ‘I’m already in the make-up chair. I’m just about to go and record four episodes of this new show Unbeatable.

‘We’re 20 episodes in of 50. There’s 60 people on set waiting – contestants have flown up from all over the country.

‘There’s this phone call, "You’ve been track and traced, you need to isolate for the next ten days" I was like "what, can I just do a test?" It was "no".

‘There was a second where I just thought "should I just keep my mouth shut?" Then I thought, "what a hypocrite Jason you would be if you did that".

‘I’ve been giving it out for the last year about people not being responsible.

‘I felt an incredible amount of pressure on my shoulders about telling this multi-million pound production "you can’t film for ten days".’

So he confirmed that he went into isolation in a flat in Glasgow – and played Football Manager for ten days straight.

Published: 20 Apr 2021