Not only are they the hosts of one of Australia’s most popular podcasts, but Laura Byrne and Brittany Hockley have plenty of reality TV experience between them. From The Bachelor and Dancing With The Stars to I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and The Challenge Australia (RIP), the duo definitely know a thing or two about unscripted television and how it operates.
It’s because of this that they are the perfect people to host Stan’s new series, MAFS: After The Dinner Party. The much-anticipated spin-off show airs weekly after the iconic Dinner Party episodes and features unseen exclusive footage, interviews with participants and expert commentary.
What is MAFS: After The Dinner Party?
Laura and Brittany told PEDESTRIAN.TV’s podcast Villain Edit ahead of the launch that the series is utterly “unhinged” and will completely break down the fourth wall of the filming process.
“It’s not just an extension of the show, it’s its own show,” Laura said. “It really brings to life a lot of the questions that people have once they’ve watched MAFS, and we’re going to get the answers to it.”
“When you see Married At First Sight, you’re always sitting on the lounge, and you’re yelling questions like, ‘Why did you do that?’ or ‘Why didn’t you say something back?’. We’ve got those answers,” Britt shared.
This year’s season of MAFS was filmed between July and November last year, and the reunion was pre-recorded before the series even premiered, so MAFS: After The Dinner Party allows viewers to see the participants’ reactions to the on-screen drama in real time.
The episodes are filmed weekly, rather than getting banked ahead of time, and Laura and Brittany admitted they aren’t watching episodes in advance in case it sways their opinion of the current storylines.
“We are not frightened to call out bad behaviour, and if one thing is true, it’s that on MAFS, there is a lot of bad behaviour,” Laura added.
“The people I want to sit on that couch with are people like Alissa and Stella and Gia and kind of get to the bottom of what the hell is going on, [because] a lot of the behaviour seems like it’s coming out of nowhere.”
Laura and Britt claim some MAFS stars are being ‘protected’ by the edit
While Wednesday night’s Dinner Party has been described as one of the wildest in the history of MAFS (huge call), Laura and Britt teased that the extra footage shown in MAFS: After The Dinner Party is actually so much worse.
“What people are saying — that it’s some of the worst TV they’ve seen in terms of the behaviour — that is the best version of what was actually presented. That was the stuff that was edited that could be shown,” Britt claimed.
“It was far worse than that behind the scenes. There was so much more going on, and it was too much. Even for people who produced drama TV, they were like, ‘we can’t air this’.”
Laura emphasised that some of the participants’ behaviour is “just not appropriate for free-to-air TV” — but luckily for us, it will be available to watch via Stan.
“It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, it’s the edit that made me look bad’. It’s like, no, actually, you were protected as well,” she said.
Yikes.
The Stan Original MAFS: After The Dinner Party premieres tonight, only on Stan. Episodes stream weekly, immediately following the explosive Married At First Sight Dinner Party episode on Channel 9 and 9Now.
