Hit Channel 5 series green-lit for a whopping 80 new episodes – but show boss admits ‘it’s a real challenge’
CHANNEL 5 is bringing Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun back to screens, after green-lighting the show for a whopping 80-episode twelfth series.
The new series is produced by Red Sauce, but the production company’s creative director has revealed making this many episodes for one series has been “a real challenge.”
Get ready to head back to sunny Spain, as a new series of Bargain Loving Brits is on the way.
The hit series which launched in 2016 is a spin-off of Channel 5’s long-running show Bargain Loving Brits. Along with Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun, the TV franchise spawned another spin-off show, a British holiday series called Bargain Loving Brits by the Sea.
Bargain Loving Brits will make an exciting return to screens next year as Channel 5 has commissioned Red Sauce, part of the Zinc Media Group, to produce a further 80, 60-minute-long episodes following continued successful ratings for its current series.
Thrilled about the new series, Red Sauce’s Creative Director Tom Edwards said: “Just as we deliver the final shows in last year’s 136-episode order, we’re overjoyed to be returning to the Costas for another bumper series.”
The show’s longest series to date has been 40 episodes, so this is than double. The latest series in April 2024 was its shortest ever, with only 6 episodes.
Now Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun will be back bigger than ever – though Tom emphasised what a “challenge” it has been to make the show’s largest ever series.
“It’s been a real challenge to scale up what was a 6-part series into such high volume and I’m very proud we’ve done it so well,” he said.
“It’s fantastic also to be working with nearly 150 highly talented people to produce this perennially-loved series,” the creative director added.
The observational television series profiles British expatriates to the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol and Romería de El Rocío in coastal Spain.
The subjects are shown trying to keep within their means. They consume lager, manage animal shelters, and perform drag.
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- All Creatures Great and Small – Based on the best-selling novels by real-life vet Alf Wright, the show revolves around a trio of vets working in the Yorkshire Dales in the late 1930s. Eccentric Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West) hires James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) for his veterinary practice at Skeldale House alongside himself and his younger brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse). There James settles into his new life and even finds love with local farmer’s daughter Helen (Rachel Shenton).
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- The Drowning – Jill Halfpenny plays Jodie, a woman whose life is shattered following the disappearance of her beloved four-year-old son, Daniel. However, ten years later, the grieving mother thinks she’s finally found her missing child, and embarks on a journey to discover the truth about him. But has she really just found the son she has been missing for so long?
There have been plenty of memorable scenes over the years, including one couple buying a caravan online that doesn’t exist, while another pair opens a café doing British roasts – and faces stiff competition.
Channel 5 has also welcomed some memorable faces to the show, including Benidorm star Graham ‘Happy Days’ Boland.
Cold Feet’s John Thomson narrates this bargain-hunting reality show.
Production on series 12 begins this autumn with transmission details revealed in due course.
Series 1 to 11 of Bargain Loving Brits are the Sun is available to stream on My5.