Bonkers new show Sexy Beasts combines The Masked Singer and Blind Date

Bonkers new show Sexy Beasts combines The Masked Singer and Blind Date
Bonkers new Netflix show Sexy Beasts combines The Masked Singer and Blind Date

A wolf, a dinosaur, a troll and an owl walk into a bar. What do they ask for? Why, true love, of course!

No, it’s not a joke about cross-species relations, but the premise of an outlandish new dating show that merges the bonkers identity-concealing costumes of The Masked Singer with the old-school charm of Blind Date.

Putting a very literal spin on the old saying that love is blind, Sexy Beasts, which has just launched on Netflix, sees singletons don an ever more bizarre series of masks to see if they can find a love connection based on personality alone.

In an image-obsessed age, it’s certainly a novel idea. But would you date someone who looked like this? BETH HALE takes a peek behind the mask . . .

THE ULTIMATE BLIND DATE

Cilla Black used to deploy a screen to keep her amorous hopefuls hidden until the big reveal.

But on Blind Date it was only the contestants in the dark. On Sexy Beasts, the audience are left wondering, too.

In each episode, one man or woman is the ‘picker’ and there are three ‘hopefuls’ — none of whom know what the others look like.

With the skilful assistance of a British prosthetics and special effects studio, the daters are all kitted out in full costume. The menagerie includes a mandrill (a type of primate), panda, frog, dolphin, rooster, zombie and scarecrow (to name just a few).

The picker gets to speed-date three potential love matches, then quickly jettisons one. They then get to enjoy a slightly more leisurely second date with the remaining contenders before making a final decision.

Putting a very literal spin on the old saying that love is blind, Sexy Beasts, which has just launched on Netflix, sees singletons don an ever more bizarre series of masks to see if they can find a love connection based on personality alone

Putting a very literal spin on the old saying that love is blind, Sexy Beasts, which has just launched on Netflix, sees singletons don an ever more bizarre series of masks to see if they can find a love connection based on personality alone

Then comes the big reveal of what all three hopefuls really look like — where the picker endeavours not to appear too gutted if they prefer the beauty who was eliminated before the beast they plumped for.

The series includes a line-up of British and American hopefuls, and is narrated by U.S. comedian and Catastrophe star Rob Delaney, who now lives in London.

It was all filmed in the UK, with the primary setting for the big reveal being Knebworth House. The Hertfordshire estate has also been the backdrop for films such as The King’s Speech, Nanny McPhee and St Trinian’s 2.

If the show looks familiar, it might be because you caught its first incarnation on BBC Three, back in 2014.

It quietly faded away after a single short series, but now Lion TV and the original creator and executive producer Simon Welton have brought it back in glossier Hollywood packaging for Netflix.

BUILDING THE BEASTS

The process of creating and overseeing the production of 48 masks fell to British special effects whizz Kristyan Mallett.

His KM Effects workshop in Watford, Hertfordshire, has been the source of costumes worn by Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio and Eddie Redmayne, with credits including The Mummy and Paddington 2.

Kristyan, who first fell in love with film and make-up effects while growing up in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, got his big break as an apprentice on the third film in the Harry Potter series.

But while special effects for a film such as Harry Potter might be months in the planning, for Sexy Beasts everything was designed, produced and fitted within a matter of weeks.

In each episode, one man or woman is the ‘picker’ and there are three ‘hopefuls’ — none of whom know what the others look like. Pictured: Lilly (dressed as a witch), a model from London, wants to be liked for being more than 'a pretty face'. Kelechi (dressed as a rooster) is a Tennessee student worried about people staring at his bits

In each episode, one man or woman is the ‘picker’ and there are three ‘hopefuls’ — none of whom know what the others look like. Pictured: Lilly (dressed as a witch), a model from London, wants to be liked for being more than 'a pretty face'. Kelechi (dressed as a rooster) is a Tennessee student worried about people staring at his bits

Texan student Dustin (seen here as a scarecrow) says his secret weapons are 'my charm and my smile'

Texan student Dustin (seen here as a scarecrow) says his secret weapons are 'my charm and my smile'

What’s more, because Kristyan and his team did not know which contestants would be dumped after the first date, sculptors had to create three identical prosthetics for each character, because each would only last one wear.

It meant making 144 individual pieces for 12 episodes, six of which are now available to view, with six more to come at a later date.

‘The sheer amount of prosthetics that weren’t used on that show — that were fully made — was heartbreaking,’ says Kristyan.

Nevertheless, he embraced the challenge of the project, which he says was ‘low budget’ but ‘fun’. So how did he do it?

STEP 1: Creating silly characters

The first stage involved coming up with a list of characters.

‘Simon, the producer, and I discussed what the characters were going to be,’ says Kristyan.

‘We put a list together of who we thought could be quite funny, things that could work, and then moved on to some concepts.

‘They had to be friendly and silly — we couldn’t have anything too gruesome or gory, and nothing offensive. We had to tweak a few things — if we had a zombie, it had to be a colourful zombie.

‘We had a Frankenstein we had to revisit to make it much more fun, too.’

London model Emma (dress as a demon) says she's sick of being judged purely on her looks

James (wearing a beaver outfit) is a lab technician from Los Angeles who wants to fall in love

The process of creating and overseeing the production of 48 masks fell to British special effects whizz Kristyan Mallett. Pictured: London model Emma (dress as a demon) and lab technician James (wearing a beaver outfit)

STEP 2: Designing in the dark

It’s not just love that is blind on this show. The design team had no idea who would end up wearing each costume — not even whether it would be a man or a woman.

‘Normally you would get six to eight weeks to sculpt a full prosthetic character for a film,’ explains Kristyan. ‘You know who you are going to be sticking it on. But in this particular instance, we had none of that. Is it going to be a large person, a small person?

‘We sculpted all the characters on generic heads in the workshop … if you sculpt on a small head

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