Jeremy Kyle Show: Death On Daytime (Channel 4) is a crass title for a rigorous documentary. There is a sense that an investigation like this has been a long time coming. The Jeremy Kyle Show ran for 3,320 episodes over 14 years on ITV, and was at times the channel’s most popular daytime show. More than 1 million viewers regularly watched as its guests argued over paternity, addiction, deceit and betrayal, while Kyle bayed and roared in their faces. ITV claimed, and continues to claim via a lengthy statement at the end of this film, that the aim of the show was to provide “conflict resolution” for its guests.
The documentary’s director Kira Phillips pieces together a different picture, and she does so with quiet fury. Steve Dymond was a guest on the show in May 2019, taking a lie detector test to prove to his partner, Jane, that he had not been unfaithful. The test said he was lying. The episode was never broadcast, because Dymond killed himself a few days after filming. Shortly afterwards, ITV cancelled the series with immediate effect.
