Top of the list of things we didn’t know we wanted in 2024: a Rees-Mogg reality TV show.
Set to release in early December, the series lets us into the lives of the Rees-Mogg clan, including Jacob, who was (until this year) a Tory MP best known for lounging insouciantly in the House of Commons during PMQs.
With the trailer now out, here’s everything you need to know about one of winter’s most controversial new releases.
What’s in the trailer?
To put it plainly, it’s a deep dive into one of politics’ most polarising forces: Jacob Rees-Mogg. “I’ve been involved in some political controversy,” the Moggster says at the start of the trailer – quite an intro. “I’m afraid – and this is probably a sin – I quite enjoy winding people up.”
We also get a glimpse of family life, especially with his children – one of whom, Mary, is asked if she’s “posh.”
“We have quite posh accents,” she admits.
It seems as though the general election will loom large in the show. We see clips of Rees-Mogg out campaigning, of him watching the crushing defeat of the Conservatives at home in front of the television, and of him processing the aftermath.
“Life goes on. What’s next, should always be the question,” he says – the answer, of course, is to become a reality TV star.
The trailer ends with us meeting the staff in the Rees-Mogg mansion. There’s Shaun, a handyman whose job apparently includes scrubbing graffiti off Rees-Mogg’s campaign signs, and one of the maids, who tells us all how the elder Mogg likes his boxers to be ironed.
Who will be starring?
The Rees-Mogg tribe – and there are a lot of them. In addition to Jacob, we’ll meet his wife Helena de Chair. Actually, her full name is Helena Anne Beatrix Fitzwilliam de Chair: she’s the daughter of landowner and biographer Somerset de Chair and Lady Julliet Tadgell.
There will also be his six children, who deserve to have their names listed in full: Peter Theodore Alphege Rees-Mogg, Mary Anne Charlotte Emma Rees-Mogg, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan Rees-Mogg, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam Rees-Mogg, Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius Rees-Mogg, and Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher Rees-Mogg.
Is there a plot?
Not as such, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be entertaining. The show is set to follow the Rees-Mogg clan as they go about their lives in their 17th century Somerset home, Gournay Court. It was built in 1600, and became part of the Duchy of Cornwall (as well as a First World War hospital) before being purchased by the Rees-Moggs.
The show’s synopsis is equally vague. "Following Rees-Mogg through the run-up to the General Election and the aftermath that follows,” it reads, “the series… will give viewers insight into the political figure who divides opinion as well as the husband and father at home."
We’ll see Rees-Mogg, a former Tory MP, lose his seat in the House of Commons after a decade in power – though how much of that will make it into the show isn’t clear. Rees-Mogg himself has called the show “more Fawlty Towers than Downton Abbey”, which implies chaos, stress and a lot of shouting.
We’ll also see more of the family routine, which should make for fascinating viewing in itself. We don’t really know much about what goes on behind the closed doors of Gournay Court, but we do know that the family attend traditional Catholic mass, make their own cider and collect Bentleys. Oh, and their family motto is Cura Pii Diis Sunt: translated, “the pious are an object of concern for the gods”.
When is it out?
It’s out on December 2 on TV channel Discovery Plus
