A former Bargain Hunt participant has detailed why he chose to’strangle’ an expert after an auction item completely flopped.
Last year, Liverpudlian Stevie Turner participated alongside buddy Bill Smith on an edition of the long-running BBC programme, with the duo confronted with purchasing antiques to later re-sell at auction.
However, things did not go as planned when an Edwardian silver Vesta case etched with a golfing pattern fell under the hammer for a whopping £115 loss.
Despite Charles Hanson’s prediction that the item would be a hit, Stevie practically took matters into his own hands in the moments following the sale.
After Charles made some sly remarks about the object ‘not teeing off,’ the 57-year-old went to the expert and mock-throttled him, clearly surprised by the enormous loss.
When asked about the event, Stevie stated it was his “natural reaction” to shoot at the antiques expert.
‘It lost so much money. I thought, “That has got to be a record-breaking loss on Bargain Hunt”,’ he said.
‘My natural reaction was to throttle him. I hadn’t planned it, and Charles definitely looked shocked and didn’t see it coming.
‘I don’t think that had ever happened on the show before. We had a laugh about it after and when I saw it on TV it was hilarious,’ he added when speaking to The Sun.
Stevie recalled how they’d been ‘up against it’ while roaming around a fair and made a hasty choice to pick up the Vesta case that Charles had advised.
While they were able to negotiate the price down from £220 to £195, it only sold for £80 at auction.
‘Charles kept going on and on about that bloody Vesta case and when it lost money it was frustrating,’ Stevie continued.
Stevie reflected on his actions, saying that candidates were urged to’react animatedly’ for the cameras during the auction scene.
‘They know what to do to make it a good TV show and as a contestant, you’re conscious that you want it to be entertaining for viewers,’ he explained.
‘You don’t want to come across as boring, so you get a bit more animated, and they ask you to react for the camera… I certainly did that when I strangled Charles.’
Offering an insight into the process of putting the show together, Stevie claimed they were ‘guided’ to certain stalls, which he thought was done after the expert had already ‘scouted out some items to talk on camera about’.
‘He must have done because surely he doesn’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge about everything,’ he said.
Another fairly alarming incident occurred during filming, with Stevie revealing that a cameraman accidentally knocked over an antique, smashing it to smithereens.
‘I don’t think it was a cheap item either, it certainly cost a few bob, but they had money on them and had to pay up,’ he said.
Although Stevie and Bill were defeated by the Blue Team, who won with a profit of £18, Stevie stated that he did not regret signing up for the programme.
He also said that the two collected almost £1300 for Macmillan Cancer Support by screening their episode at a fundraiser.
He added that ‘everyone was really nice and charming’, and they’d had ‘such a good time’.
Bargain Hunt is streaming on BBC iPlayer.
Source My Celebrity Life.
