Ever been on a reality TV show? Eventually you will be.
There are so many reality shows in the TV landscape nowadays that I figure at some point, every Australian will get a turn. Mine came in 2013 when I was cast on the first series of The Great Australian Bakeoff:
Oh my giddy aunt, it was ACE. I pushed so many pies, cakes, biscuits and sugary buns into my gob that at one point a producer yelled at me “Augustus! Save some room for later!”.
Apart from eating my way into a larger sized pair of jeans I also got to be on a TV ad where I played basketball on a giant cake. And then I fulfilled a lifelong dream: putting the greatest cake known to man – the Pool Cake from the Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book – on prime time TV:
But behind the glamorous cake climbing and jelly-eating scenes, there was some pretty messed up stuff that went down. And with the news that there is going to be a SECOND SEASON on Foxtel and casting is open NOW, there’s some things you should know about.
WHAT WAS YOURS? The 13 Best Cakes from the Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book
Before I went away to the Big Baking House, I asked a friend who had been on a very large reality TV cooking show what I could expect.
We caught up for coffee. I had a BIG list of questions. Except the problem was, he was a bit cute. And I liked him. And I got nervous and flustered and so at the points that I should have been LISTENING and taking SERIOUS NOTES in my SERIOUS MOLESKIN NOTEBOOK like a serious baking Hemingway, I was actually thinking “do I have an ugly coffee moustache?” and “is there a massive bat in my cave” and ‘are my undies poking out the back arse top of my jeans”?
SO I WENT IN UNDERPREPARED dear reader. This shall not be your fate. I am here today to arm you with all the preparation you need for your reality TV journey. No matter if you are sporting the largest of coffee moustaches, or your nose cave is full of snot bats. Be free to read this with the worst underwear in the world hanging out of your back jeans arse top. Because it is a matter of public interest that you know what you are getting yourself in for.
HERE GOES. LETS DO THIS. HIGH FIVE.
1. The application process goes deep. REAL DEEP.
It’s not just a one page form where you tick some boxes and and then show ’em your biscuit. The casting process goes WAY further: think extensive psychological and background testing. This is for two reasons. One: If you get cast, they’ll be damned if midway through filming, you get arrested for the meth lab you have in your bathroom. They want to know all your skeletons. It doesn’t mean you wont get cast, it’s just so they can build a profile of you so there are no surprises or PR nightmares. You will do endless interviews and psychological examinations until these strangers know more about you than your BFF. You will reveal everything: your family history, your sexual history, your psychological history, your job history, your shameful, emotional eating history, and that one time you accidentally asked to feel the belly of your pregnant workmate, who actually wasn’t pregnant. Awks.