Channel 4’s new social experiment sees pairs handcuffed 24/7 – here’s the reason why and the duty of care shown

Could you survive being handcuffed to a complete stranger? Well, that's the question Channel 4 asked 18 brave Brits who have embarked on an experiment to do just that.

In an audacious new social experiment, Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing, will follow nine pairs as they compete to win a £100,000 prize. The catch? They have to cope being chained to each other 24/7, doing everything just inches apart. But the minute they choose to uncuff, they'll be out of the competition.

It'd be fair to assume that maybe the contestants wouldn't sleep together with the handcuffs on, or they'd be able to uncuff when the other needs the toilet, but those assumptions would be wrong.

"I think it was really important for us, when we started this, that it was a genuine experiment," executive producer Tom Clarke told Radio Times and other press.

"And what that meant was people had to be handcuffed the whole time. So it couldn't be 12 hours on, 12 hours off. It had to be something they did while they were eating, whilst they were sleeping, whilst they were showering. It was something we stuck to rigidly."

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Clarke explained that he and the show's creators wanted the contestants to be "in each other's orbits the entire time", with its entire notion being "they were there together through thick and thin".

Throughout the series, the pairs set off for each other's houses, to walk a mile in their partner's shoes – and should the contestants want remove their handcuffs, there are keys placed in every location for them call it quits.

"[At] anytime they were always free to leave, but obviously that was something that would put them and their partner out. So it was a big decision," Clarke explained.

"We were sort of there 24 hours a day having teams of people looking after them the whole time. There were teams of people watching them sleep, as bizarre as that sounds. So we were sort of always there, but it was always up to the guys themselves, how long they wanted to stay in and something for them to navigate together as well."

In the first episode, viewers will be introduced to Sir Benjamin Slade, the 7th Baronet of Maunsel, in Somerset and George, a former prison officer and no-nonsense Cockney.

To be expected, the pair clash throughout their turbulent time together, particularly when George comes across a painting by Adolf Hitler in Sir Benjamin's home, something George questions, but Sir Benjamin shrugs off.

During a Q&A ahead of the show's launch, Clarke was asked about the duty of care put in place for the contestants, when friction is likely to happen between all the pairs.

"It's absolutely about entertaining moments of bringing different worlds together, [and] it was also really important for us, from the start, that people had something they could learn," Clarke explained. "And our goal overall, and without giving spoilers away, was always to have kind of lasting friendships come out of this. This was an experiment about taking different worlds, but actually seeing it by bringing them together, we could find something positive and uplifting about the fact that different people can get along. So it wasn't purely a conflict machine."

However, Clarke noted that the scale of Handcuffed was a "huge production" in which people were living together across the country, and duty of care was paramount to each of them.

"So we had a huge duty of care. We had welfare teams, we had people watching people overnight, we had psychologists on call. We had a sort of huge infrastructure around that and took that very, very seriously," Clarke told press including Radio Times.

"And obviously we have appropriate after care in place for everybody as well."

Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing will air on Monday 2 March at 9pm on Channel 4.

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