The four faces behind the production were chosen, as is the 4People way, via a number of seminars and auditions. The programme is definitely a shocker, especially the hot seat, an exercise in raw frankness and unmitigated boldness.

Hosted by the sprightly and sunny Stefanie Cassar, she is the backbone of the show whose unenviable job it is to reign in the spirited personalities that week by week visit the studio. Dopo is growing in popularity and a good dose of notoriety too.

“What we wanted was to come up with a sort of challenge…” say both Martina Zammit and Adrian Saliba from the Dopo team. “We were aware that the hot seat would be a blind leap… but it was a risk worth taking. In fact today, many people from the showbiz scene are calling in to actually volunteer to challenge the fiery Miss Kelly”.

Deeply misunderstood and misinterpreted Miss Kelly is the girl with the needle sharp tongue and rapier wit whose job it is to bring the esteemed guests to boiling point. At first, however, she had to face some initial flack.

“Things are looking up” says Kelly. “Initially the audiences reacted negatively to me. Even my friends were not totally partial to the role. No one seemed to have understood that mine is a ‘part’ just as any other actor plays a part in a stage play or TV series. People are now warming up to the idea though and the comments are mostly positive.”

Always out and about, the girl who week after week introduces the show, is Stefanie Camilleri. Timid and soft spoken she is the proverbial weight to balance the scales. She is somewhere between Stefanie’s sheer exuberance and Miss Kelly’s red hot fire… in other words, she’s the mildest of the three and her role is to bring us the goods on what is happening on the outside.

The fourth member of the cast is Terence from Zebbug. No one seemed to have understood his role at first; we are unsure whether he himself understood it, but basically Terence provides a sort of impartial commentary with a hint of humour. It is his job to ultimately decide whether the personality has been truthful or not and, depending on his judgement, Terence will dispatch the relevant punishment.

The philosophy behind Dopo is a simple one: it is all about getting to know people, the truth about the personality revealing not only what they choose to reveal, but what they are forced to accept; every week the team researches the personality’s past and his or her fears – depending on the prevailing circumstances.

The much debated hot seat centres around the concept of pressure, and what people do or say under pressure. The very set design with an elevated hot-seat overlooking both the guest, the presenter and the entire audience is all about building expectation, hyping the fear factor and upping the pressure on the guests. The hot seat is a cross between the electric chair and the confessional.

Dopo is aired every Tuesday night at 9.30pm on One TV.