Doing (prime) time! Celebs including Tom Rosenthal, ex-MP Neil Parish and the Mail’s Peter Hitchens get locked up in prison for new Channel 4 TV show

Being locked up despite having done nothing wrong may sound like a nightmare.

But in this instance, the inmates have volunteered to be there.

A Channel 4 show has followed a group of celebrities who swap their normal lives for a stint at the decommissioned Shrewsbury Prison where they live like real lags. 

The cast includes EastEnders actor Sid Owen, Gogglebox star Marcus Luther and the Mail’s Peter Hitchens.

The participants were locked up for eight days, during which they were kept in cells, given jobs to undertake and subject to body searches. They were attended to by real former prison guards.

They were joined in their cells by real ex-criminals, some of whom served sentences for serious crimes. 

The participants were locked up for eight days, during which they were kept in cells, given jobs to undertake and subject to body searches

The participants were able to question their cellmates about their experience of being incarcerated and examine the impact their jail time has had on them.

The experiment was run by a former prison governor with 20 years’ experience at some of the UK’s most notorious prisons and all participants lived according to current UK prison rules. 

The four-part documentary series Banged Up will be broadcast this autumn.

Others celebrities taking part include ex-MP Neil Parish, comedian and actor Tom Rosenthal and former Strictly Come Dancing star HRVY. It is understood Matt Hancock was approached but declined to take part.

Owen, who played Ricky Butcher in the long-running soap, has spoken in the past about how his father was jailed for his part in a robbery when he was a child.