Love Island's infamous narrator Iain Stirling. Photo / TVNZ
Love Island's infamous narrator Iain Stirling. Photo / TVNZ
Love Island is filmed in the romantic and dreamy town of Mallorca in Spain’s Balearic Islands, but the show’s narrator reveals it’s not there that he wants to visit again, it’s New Zealand.
Speaking to the Herald via Zoom, Iain Stirling sits in his crisp white office at 9pm, with a warm lamp switched on and a homely feel noticeable even through a laptop camera. It’s where he will record the majority - if not all - of his witty voice over for season 10 of the hit UK dating show. He confesses that at the end of the season could be planning a trip to Aotearoa.
“I want to come back to New Zealand,” he says adding he was going to say Australia as well to make it seem like he wasn’t just saying New Zealand for interview purposes but he admits with a chuckle, “I sort of did Melbourne and I thought it was a bit rubbish”.
Stirling visited New Zealand in 2017 for a quick appearance at the New Zealand Comedy Fest and says it was a peculiar time for him as he came here an unknown man, and effectively left a star, “I’d done it [NZ Comedy Fest] but I came back [to the UK] for Love Island but then this, the series I came back for was series four, sort of the one that went absolutely massive.
“So I sort of went to New Zealand [as] an unknown comedian, and then came back and then within about four weeks this show had just exploded. So yeah, it was a fun time.”
Love Island debuted in the UK in 2015, and the finale was watched by 737,000 viewers according to the BBC. But as Stirling notes, its fourth season in 2018 was when it catapulted into the pop-culture Hall of Fame with more than 4.3 million people tuning into the finale. Since then the show has captivated audiences, dominated the online meme space and provoked the emotional support water bottle trend, but it’s also garnered intense backlash.
Faye Winter received a record number of complaints in 2021. Photo / ITV
Last year the show received more than 5000 complaints, with Mail Online reporting a least 1500 of those were in relation to misogynistic behaviour. In 2021, it was widely reported that complaints reached a new record of 24,763 after islander Faye Winter had a “toxic” meltdown. And they were only the formally registered complaints.
On social media platforms such as Twitter, regular viewers of the show don’t shy away from sharing their opinions with one particularly notable one being that the show has lost its magic because people only go on it to get famous and build their profile.
Stirling reveals his thoughts on the claim stating, “I don’t know what I think about it,” he smiles softly before adding, “Because there’s a small part of it that goes sort of ‘So what?’” The 35-year-old goes on to explain that even if people are signing up for the show with the sole intention of becoming famous, it’s a method that’s worked for 10 seasons, especially for him as a narrator.
Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague. Photo / ITV
“My job has always been making fun of the show for what it is and what it’s become so that’s a fun element,” he says. Despite this, he and the show makers know this is a fine line to navigate. “Don’t get me wrong, if someone’s literally like, f**k this format, I’m just gonna go on a TV show and try and get famous, then if we get 50 of them, we’re knackered.” Stirling laughs.
Regardless, Love Island is about romance and building a lasting connection with another person and those storylines will always shine through in the editing process. Stirling references the most famous couple to leave the infamous Mallorca villa, Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague.
“Molly said ‘I went on Love Island because I thought it’d be good for my career’, and it’s one of the best love stories that I’ve ever seen on the show,” he excitedly says. “Her and Maura Higgins trying to fight for Tommy was genuinely two girls trying to fight for a guy.
“So, ultimately do I care if she came on the show to meet Tommy Fury to get famous? No, I don’t care.”
Stirling – or at least his voice - has become almost as famous as Hague and Fury. He’s the affectionate roaster of the show known for his sarcastic comments and hilarious commentary but he admits, there is a method to his madness.
“I’ve never wanted to make fun of someone and make them feel alienated,” he says explaining when he and his writing partner Mark Busk-Cowley started writing Love Island jokes. They had a rule: “you can’t ever make fun of someone. Like you can’t question like their appearance or the way they’ve spoken or whatever.”
Love Island season 10 cast. Photo / TVNZ
Although he admits it’s something that maybe not everyone would agree with, “there’s probably a few bits that maybe were closer to the bone than intended”, the comedian says.
Despite his own rules, Stirling admits that even though the contestants know what they are signing up for, it’s “really tough” to watch social media react. “I suppose it’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Because it’s that infatuation and obsession that makes the show so popular. But then it’s also that obsession that makes it quite difficult for those contestants.”
And as we are about to embark on yet another season of the hit show, he has one message for fans watching, “Love Island is almost like a character they play like in a sitcom,” he says, ”I wish you could separate the artist from the art, so to speak.”
