WHAT'S IT LIKE FILMING THE SERIES?
Sara Davies: What I think a lot of people don't realise is we can be two hours on a pitch interrogating one of the contestants and everything like that. You see 12 minutes of it.
I think people don't believe us when we say to them that we don't know anything about the businesses until they walk through the lift. You're so caught up in, 'Oh my gosh, I've got to make a big financial decision here' that you forget about the cameras and you're really just in the moment.
SO YOUR REACTIONS ARE GENUINE, THEN?
Sara Davies: I watch myself back and some of the looks I've given, I was like, 'Oh, got to watch for the eye rolls next series!' They must have a camera on me all the time just waiting.
WHAT LESSONS DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR DEBUT SERIES LAST YEAR?
Sara Davies: I'm really conscious of body language. I remember going into the edit after the first series and I met the editors. They were like, 'We love working on the clips with you in because every feeling you've got oozes out of every pore of your body, you don't hide it'. I'd never thought about it before.
I've obviously watched the show for 15-odd years and I know how everybody else comes across. I think the other dragons can sometimes be a little bit reserved and I'm just there [with a] happy, smiley face just winking at the contestants or whatever it is.
So, I guess that's been a big learning curve for me.
WHAT'S THE PUBLIC REATION BEEN LIKE FOR YOU?
Sara Davies: After the first series came out, I would be out shopping with the kids and people would stop me and come up to me and say, 'I just want to say, we're so proud of you, you know'. North-east people are very big on that sort of thing.
We'll tell you how proud we are of Ant and Dec. Ant and Dec, they came from Newcastle, they're our people. And it's that whole pride in the North East thing."
WHAT WAS IT LIKE FILMING DURING COVID?
Deborah Meaden: The difference, actually, happened outside of the den. It was a bit odd eating two metres apart, but on the last night the country went into lockdown.
So, once we finished filming, we couldn't eat in the den because we'd technically stopped work, so we had to go back to the hotel and get a takeaway. We were the only people in the hotel, in the restaurant, under their security fluorescent lights with chairs still up on the tables.
They cleared a couple and we were all sat two metres apart. I mean, the glamorous life us dragons lead. We looked at each other and thought, 'Well, it doesn't get better than this!'
Sara Davies: What was really interesting is the calibre of businesses we saw in this series was higher than we'd ever seen before. Now, it's easy for me to say because it's only my second series. But Peter and Deborah who have been there all these years, they said it was 'the highest calibre of businesses we'd ever seen'.
We had more investments where we all fought it out – it was a record-breaking number. There was over £2 million pledged in the den in the series; every night we would walk back to the hotel and everyone would say, 'I can't believe the calibre of the businesses we've seen today'.
:: Dragons' Den returns on Thursday April 1 on BBC One
