The Masked Singer has earned itself a reputation as the most chaotic show on TV, and for good reason. For every crazy costume, cryptic clue package, and colourful suit worn by host Osher Günsberg, the panel of four expert guessers will be trying to cut through the noise and work out who is behind the mask.
This year, the guessing panel has had a shake-up with Dave Hughes the only one staying on from last year. Dannii Minogue, Jackie O, and Urzila Carlson are out, and taking their places in the hot seat are Mel B, Chrissie Swan, and Abbie Chatfield.
Mediaweek spoke to Abbie Chatfield about taking her place behind the desk ahead of the show’s launch on Sunday, August 7 at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play.
When the opportunity arose to be a part of the show, Chatfield says she didn’t take long to think about whether or not she would jump on board.
“I knew that Chrissie was joining, and obviously Hughesy was there. I didn’t know about Mel B yet, but there were all these amazing people who I would have loved to work with. So it was a pretty easy ‘yes’.”
Chrissie Swan, Abbie Chatfield, Mel B and Dave Hughes
It’s one thing to watch The Masked Singer on TV, with the internet available in the palm of your hand. It’s a whole other thing to be there in person, and for Chatfield, being a part of the guessing panel meant that the pressure was on in a whole new way.
“Watching the show, I would get so frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out – so this year, it’s like ‘you have to do it, and you’re going to solve the riddle’. It was a test.”
“I’m like, ‘oh my God, I can’t figure it out from one clue package,’ but now I’ve learned you have to watch the whole season. Then you get it.”
Everyone who plays along with The Masked Singer at home will eventually develop their own strategies to try and crack the case – strategies which range from using your long-held pop culture knowledge to make an educated guess, to shouting out any name you can think of and hoping one sticks, to heading straight to Twitter to plagiarise other people’s guesses.
On the panel, Chatfield says that she has landed on a much more structured method of her own.
“Because I’m a bit younger than the other three people who are guessing, they have more knowledge about pop culture things that happened in the early 2000s. They know things like ‘that person got divorced in 2003’ – I was eight years old, I don’t know what’s going on.
“My strategy has been to try and get those weird sayings in the clue package. I try to write them down, and then I see if there’s a song, or a movie, or a play that has that title or those lyrics in it – or something like that. That’s my go-to strategy.”
In amongst the spectacle of watching a giant disco ball take to the stage to sing a karaoke favourite, Chatfield says it can be easy to forget what is really going on.
“You try to prepare your mind. You know that you’re going to see a giant thong dance on stage to a random song, you know that there’s a celebrity underneath there, but it’s really hard for your brain to compute.
“There are all of the amazing costumes, you’ve got Osher there in his bright suit, we have a full studio audience. It really is overwhelming and amazing.”
One way or another, however, the only certainty that exists in the show is that the masks will be coming off sooner rather than later.
“When that mask comes off, Chrissie and I say that it’s almost like their face is pixelated until your brain can accept who it is. It’s the most bizarre thing.
“You have these connections with these masks, and then when the mask comes off, you go ‘oh my God, that’s actually – for example – Cody Simpson’. You have this preconceived idea of who they are, and you have to change that because they’re a real person, not just a giant robot on stage.”
For the last two years, The Masked Singer – and any other show that would normally involve more than one person per four square meters – has had to navigate the impacts of Covid. With restrictions lifting, this season has been able to welcome a full studio audience back to join in the fun.
“I’ve hosted After Party for Love Island and we had a live audience for that, but because of Covid, there were only something like 18 people,” says Chatfield “This is the first show I’ve done with a big live audience, and it’s been so much fun. It just changes the energy in the room.”
Abbie Chats
The Masked Singer isn’t the only time Chatfield has hit the screen for 10 this year, having recorded an episode of Abbie Chats for 10’s 2022 Pilot Showcase. The show sends Chatfield on a mission to explore worlds not commonly seen or heard from on TV, in a show that she says has been a long time coming.
BTS of Abbie Chats
“That’s actually been an idea that I’ve had since the podcast [It’s A Lot] started. It was really fun and really interesting to film, because the whole concept is me having questions about certain topics and going in there and trying to learn.
“It was a great couple of days of filming, and I learned so much. I feel like it was a good opportunity to bring more underrepresented topics to mainstream media. I’m so grateful that 10 allowed asexuality and porn to be spoken about on 10 Play.”
The Masked Singer: Sunday, August 7 at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play