ITV is to launch a new dating programme billed as a “midlife Love Island”.
Davina McCall will host The Romance Retreat, in which contestants whose children have flown the nest look for love.
Instead of Love Island’s garish holiday villa, they will move into a country house and be paired off with prospective partners.
Casting is under way for “vibrant single parents” keen to appear on the show, which will air later this year.
McCall had previously spoken about wanting to present a dating show for the over-40s.
Announcing The Romance Retreat, she said: “I manifested and I made it happen. I willed there to be an amazing new dating programme for grown-ups, people who have lived a life, who have been through experiences – bad, moving, they’ve had tough lives.
“They’ve got luggage but they deserve love and it’s happening. It’s coming to ITV soon.”
'A world of grown-up love'
ITV said viewers would witness “the highs and the lows, the tears and the funny moments” of stepping back into the dating arena and “a whole new world of grown-up love”.
McCall urged children to nominate their parents. Posting on Instagram, she said: “Do you have a parent – if you’re over 18 – who you think deserves to find love?
“We are particularly interested in finding deserving, desirable men – and women as well.”
Love Island has been one of ITV’s biggest successes of recent years and in 2020 became the most-watched show among its target audience of 16 to 34-year-olds.
McCall, 55, said in an interview earlier this year that older people would bring better “backstories” to a dating show.
She said: “I’m literally begging ITV to let me present midlife Love Island. I could fill a villa with middle-aged people with the best backstories you have ever heard in your life.
“They’re widows, they’re people who have been through horrific divorces, they are people who have split up with somebody and decided they want to try going out with somebody the same sex as them.
“They’re interesting people. I’d watch that show.”
