Alone with the In-Laws with Gogglebox’s Kate Bottley is like Wife Swap crossed with Meet the Parents

How much can engaged couples learn about their future from each other’s parents?
Family matters: Revered Kate Bottley stars in BBC Two's new take on Wife Swap
BBC/Studio Lambert/Des Willie
Ben Travis6 April 2017

It’s been eight years since Wife Swap ended in the UK – the reality show where families exchanged spouses to see how other households live.

Now the makers of that show have re-jigged the format with a new angle and a slightly more serious tone in new series Alone with the In-Laws.

The BBC show takes engaged couples and tasks the bride- and groom-to-be to live with each other’s parents for a few days.

The aim is that each half will get a deeper insight into their partner’s family life – and what their domestic future together might look like.

Guiding them on this journey is Reverend Kate Bottley, a friendly face from Channel 4’s Gogglebox.

“When a bride and groom arrive at their wedding day, they bring to the altar all sorts of expectations about what married life might be,” she explains.

“But of course those expectations are not always matching because they can have such different examples of marriage in their own parents and in their own families.”

The first participants are recruitment consultant Chris and his fiancée Stacey from Bristol, whose nuptials are lined up for this summer.

Gogglebox: The families

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But there are some inevitable pre-wedding jitters that are waiting to be explored in the show.

“Since we got engaged, I’ve had quite a lot of anxieties about feeling trapped,” she confesses. “I used to hear my parents arguing, they broke up when I was about 15 or 16.”

Chris and Stacey have a list of questions they need to ask their respective in-laws over the experiment – but is it worth the awkwardness to make their relationship stronger? Tune in to find out.

BBC Two, 8pm

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