Five minutes with… First Dates’ Fred Sirieix and Merlin Griffiths

For a decade, the First Dates restaurant has been matchmaking daters with the potential loves of their lives, sparking connections between people who would never have otherwise found each other.

Now celebrating its 10-year anniversary, the wholesome and romantic Bafta-winning programme is back in the gorgeous city of Bath, bringing singletons together in the most beautiful of locations – and with an unprecedented level of success, according to maître d’ Fred Sirieix.

Cupid’s arrow has certainly struck the Roman city, as this series of First Dates, hosted at The Botanist restaurant, promises more matches than ever before.

We join Sirieix, 52, and bartender Merlin Griffiths to talk about what’s in store when the romance returns to Channel 4.

What makes Bath such a wonderful city for First Dates?

FS: It was amazing… When we were scouting for venues, Bath came top, because Bath is such a romantic city, it’s full of old stone, it’s a Roman city, it’s 2,000 years old, you know, and just when you walk in it, you feel the sense of romance… I think it’s very well suited to finding love.

MG: I love Bath. I grew up in Cheltenham, just down the road from Bath, so I’m very familiar with it. I know from my childhood it’s a beautiful part of the world… It’s just, honestly, one of the most jaw-dropping locations to go to… it’s quite a magical place.

Restaurant wise, without a doubt, hands down – and no disrespect to the beautiful restaurants that we’ve used in the past – to pop up here in this one was very special. The facilities were excellent. The space itself was absolutely magnificent. And the support from their in-house teams as well (was) second to none, which made the whole thing really easy and allowed Fred and I and everybody else to focus on what we’re really there for which is having fun, at the end of the day, and getting our daters to work things out.

FS: And the result is that we had more ‘yes’es than ever before. In all the series that we’ve done on First Dates, that was the most successful series. The reason why we do it is to put people together so that they can fall in love (and) we had more people in love in this series than in any other series.

Amazing! Were there any really memorable couples?

FS: There was this couple… They were kind of shy and a little cagey during their date, but they really liked each other. And I was staying in a hotel while I was filming there, and guess who I see the next day? This man and this woman! She had just come out of the shower, her hair was wet, and they were having a nice breakfast, talking and laughing and giggling and all that. I came up to the table and said: ‘Hi, so it worked!’

MG: An absolutely fascinating bunch of daters… unique, and wonderful, and some of the most interesting people I have met working on First Dates, ever. I think we look for interesting stories, ways to connect, and sort of present the full gamut of human life, and the way that we love and the way that we fall in love. You have to wait and see, just watch it and you’ll see what I mean. Genuinely rich and wonderful people.

Merlin, when people arrive at the restaurant, they go straight to your bar. How is that being with the daters as they wait for their dates to arrive?

MG: You have to read a little into it, don’t you? Some people, it’s nerves, which you’d have to calm them down. And you can tell that. They might sweat a little bit, they might get sort of clammy hands – I keep a stack of linen on hand, not a lot of bartenders would, but on the First Dates bar it’s quite handy, to get a gentleman or a lady to quickly mop their brow before their date turns up, because they’re nervous!

Other people, it’s a different kind of nerves, and so you sort of step back, because they’re capable of dealing with it, but they need to work through it themselves. Others are very blase about the whole thing. And that just makes conversation flow that much easier. I’m just constantly impressed with the amount of people willing to share, I think it’s really a beautiful thing.

It’s the tenth anniversary of First Dates – what do you think is behind the show’s longevity and success?

MG: I think the key to its success is honesty and kindness… As to keeping it fresh, I mean, you know, this is the wonder of human nature, is it not? We’re in a country of, what are we now? Sixty, 65 million people? Yeah, there you go, infinite variety is there to be had! And that’s the key to its success – people keep it fresh.

FS: Trust. Because the daters trust us, you know, for some of them it’s the last chance saloon, they come to First Dates and they really want to meet the person that they want to fall in love with. And they trust us to do that.

And the viewers trust us, they trust the process, they trust what we do, they know that we are in (it) for the best interests of the daters, nobody is there to be made a fool of… This is a dating show that’s there to find love.

It’s not a gimmick. It’s not for fun. It’s not for your two minutes of fame, because nobody that has done First Dates has gone on to be famous or anything like that. It is purely for love. We do it for love.

l First Dates returns to C4 on Tuesday, August 6 at 10pm.