Rylan hosts a festive spin on Dragons Den-style pitch show Buy It Now… and you might shed a surprise tear!
Rylan Clark-Neal reveals things got "really emotional" while hosting his big new show C4 show Buy It Now For Christmas, which starts tonight at 8pm.
Picture the scene... You’ve had a brainwave on the sofa, set up a workshop on the kitchen table and invented something special. Then you take your newfangled product to show Rylan, who introduces you to three major retailers with the potential to transform your life.
That’s the premise of Buy It Now At Christmas, a spin-off of the C4 daytime show originally hosted by Brian Conley. All of the products being pitched would make a good Christmas present, but don’t expect any festive goodwill – with huge investments on the line only the best will secure a deal.
Here Rylan Clark-Neal tells us why he couldn’t resist hosting Buy It Now for Christmas and the culinary invention he would have invested in...
You’re a busy man, Rylan, what made you want to host the show?
Rylan Clark Neal: "It was on when I last had a week off and I watched it all, I loved it! Buy It Now is all about shopping – people make products and pitch them in front of 100 real people, our focus group. If they turn their light on they genuinely commit to buying the product. Then we have a panel of buyers from retailers who decide if they want to make a life-changing, huge order. It gets really emotional, we’re talking orders upwards of £100k right there and then and it’s not just professional inventors, it’s also Barry down the road who just made something in his shed."
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Are you looking forward to Christmas?
Rylan: "I’ll be in the stage show of Nativity in London so I won’t get a break but I do really like Christmas. This will be the first one in my new house so I’ve been looking at Christmas lights for the past three months trying to work out what I want to do. It’s a really lovely time of year and I’m excited for the Gavin & Stacey special. I’m a real online person when it comes to present buying though. I will claim I’m going to start Christmas shopping every November and then I’m on Amazon on 23rd December!"
Did any inventions take your fancy on Buy It Now For Christmas?
Rylan: "Oh my God yes I was on the rob left, right and centre, it was ridiculous! There was one product that cut the amount of time it takes to cook a chicken in half. It was so simple, I’ve never seen anything like it before. I wanted four of them! There was also a marmalade inventor with a brand called, ‘Fat Lass Marmalade’ and the second she started speaking everyone was invested in her straight away."
Did you speak to Brian Conley about taking over the job?
Rylan: "I called him as soon as I was asked to host the show, it’s how I’ve been brought up. I had a two hour chat with him and he’s such a lovely guy. He is so busy with 9-5 The Musical, it wouldn’t have worked for his schedule so I’m taking the show on. We’ve changed it into a prime time show, it’s a bit more glitzy and prime time, I loved working on it."
Have you ever invented anything?
Rylan: "No, but if I could I’d invent a day off!"
Buy It Now For Christmas, hosted by Rylan Clark-Neal, starts Thursday 28th November on C4 at 8pm.
