Labour is on course to be the largest party in a general election, according to a new poll, leaving Reform UK a distant second.

The More in Common think tank has predicted Labour would win 250 seats in a hung parliament – 76 short of a majority – if Brits were to head back to the ballot box now.

Reform UK would win 147, the Conservatives 125, the Liberal Democrats 63 and the Greens just three.

The major MRP survey, which polled more than 15,000 British adults, will be a welcome boost to Labour just before its annual party conference in Liverpool begins.

The poll suggested Andy Burnham’s leadership had transformed Labour’s electoral chances since replacing Keir Starmer in July.

More in Common carried out a similar survey three months ago and found Reform would win 293 seats and Labour just 110.

The think tank found 214 seat projections – 143 of them to Labour – have changed since Burnham got the keys to No.10.

Labour appears to be recovering in Scotland too, as the poll shows it would win 18 seats up from just five.

However, More in Common did predict the SNP would remain the largest party with 27 out of 57.

And Labour is evidently not out of the woods yet, being still 161 seats down from their July 2024 landslide victory.

The survey found nearly half of all seats (48%) would be won by fewer than five points, making it an incredibly marginal election.

Even so, the poll also suggest Burnham’s focus on devolution has helped win over voters as Labour’s support has moved away from London.

In July, 44% of Labour’s projected seats were in the capital, but that has now decreased to 21% due to a surge in the North East, North West and Wales.

Meanwhile, Reform is struggling due to the split in the right-wing vote as splinter group Restore Britain takes crucial support, possibly costing Farage dozens of seats.

UK director at More in Common, Luke Tryl, said: “On the eve of last year’s Labour Party Conference, our MRP projected Reform could get close to a three figure majority, while both Labour and the Conservatives dropped to below triple figures.

“Fast forward to today, and it is clear the electoral landscape has transformed dramatically with Andy Burnham as prime minister. “

Tryl continued: “But far from representing a return to politics as normal, volatility has become the new watch word of our electoral system.

“The model projects that almost half of the seats would be won on margins of less than 5 per cent, meaning small swings in either direction could see any of the Tories, Reform or Labour ending up on top.

“And while the Labour advantage in seats is comfortable even on these numbers, they would still be forced into a multi-party coalition or arrangement to maintain power.”

Tryl added that Burnham’s decision to rule out an early election “is a sensible one”.

He said: “While Labour is off its death bed, the party’s recovery is far from complete.

“To call a poll the prime minister would have had to be willing to risk the careers of scores of his colleagues including his chancellor and foreign secretary, while even small shifts in the current numbers would have left him vulnerable to having a stint in Downing Street only longer than that of Liz Truss.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

As the summer blends into autumn, and the days get shorter and darker, we’ve reached that stage of the year when loads of our favourite reality shows are up and running again, from Drag Race UK and Strictly Come Dancing to the Great British Bake Off.

But let’s face it, there’s one that’s about to blow them all out of the water.

The castle doors to The Celebrity Traitors are now less than a week away from opening up again to another exciting group of famous faces from the world of film, music, sport and beyond.

And if last year’s run is anything to go by, we’re in for some more TV gold.

While exact details of the series are being kept under wraps for now, the cast have slowly been teasing how they’re feeling about it all in interviews conducted before the action officially got underway.

To help prepare for what promises to be another gripping season, here’s a selection of what the new cast members have had to say about The Celebrity Traitors’ return…

“They excelled at the missions,” Claudia Winkleman enthused, praising the group’s “amazing teamwork” and the fact they “just really wanted to build the prize pot” for their chosen charities.

Speaking more generally about the cast, she told the BBC she “couldn’t get over” the calibre of celeb contestants when she was first told about the cast.

“My bosses had to repeat the names at least three times,” she claimed. “We’re so lucky they said yes.

“Everyone taking part is fantastic. We are honoured they wanted to play the game.”

Following Alan Carr’s victory this year, The Celebrity Traitors has brought together some of the biggest names on the comedy scene right now, from James Acaster, Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan to Joe Lycett and Joanne McNally.

“They all made me laugh,” she admitted. “They are all utterly brilliant and the funniest people on earth.”

As for any scene-stealers to look out for, she teased that Rob Beckett “said something that made me hide in a bush until I composed myself”.

“[That is] a concern,” he revealed. “There will be suspicions that it’s going to be at least one of these guys, that we might form an alliance if we’re not broken apart.”

James speculated: “I think we’re going to be the first ones under the magnifying glass being looked at. Particularly at the beginning when you have absolutely nothing to go on.

“And then, you consider that a comedian won last year with Alan Carr disarming everyone with jokes the whole time. He has tainted us all!”

“Hannah Fry [mathematician and fellow Celebrity Traitors star] will probably tell you that probability-wise, there’s most likely to be at least one comic chosen as a Traitor because there’s enough of us,” he went on to theorise. “Even though it could, obviously, easily be three people who aren’t comedians…

“I don’t know how it works out, but if maths turns against us we’re in big trouble.”

“Rob is one of my best friends, and we’ve worked together for a decade now,” Romesh explained. “But I still won’t be able to trust [him]. I mean, he’s just as easily going to be on my side as he is going to twist the knife in my back given the opportunity.”

He revealed: “ It’s going to be a weird thing where normally when we’re doing Rob And Romesh vs., we’ve got each other’s backs and are helping each other out. Whereas this time, he can’t be trusted.”

So, could Romesh see himself stabbing Rob in the back?

“In a heartbeat, yeah,” he quipped. “Yeah, I think I would. It’s all fair in Traitors, isn’t it?”

Joe recalled: “When I started doing stand-up, my on and off-stage persona were quite similar. I showed off at parties because I wanted attention and then, gradually, as I got that attention through doing stand-up, I could calm down in real life.”

He continued: “When I’m not out on stage I’m very calm, thoughtful and peaceful. I think the comics know what I’m like on and off stage, but I think the others who, for the first time, will spend time with me not in ‘show mode’ might see that as suspicious.

“I definitely come across assumptions of ‘oh, he’s the gay comedian off the telly’ and I explain I’ve got a female partner and a son with said female partner. I’m really quite a tranquil individual when not in performance mode which may surprise some.”

“I am nothing like Harper!” she insisted. “I’m more of a ‘kill them with kindness’ kind of girl rather than a blatantly bullish bulldog.”

Because of this, Myha’la admitted she had “very deliberately planned the looks that I’m wearing” to “really separate” herself from Harper, “and be seen as me and not that character”.

“I’ve got my jewelry; my hair is different. I’ve really, really, really planned this,” she claimed. “I just decided to make everything lighter, gentle, feminine. Everything is soft and knitted and cosy and entirely unlike her.

“There are no shoulder pads, I’m not wearing any suiting of any kind. I’m trying to position myself as far away from Harper as possible. It’s also an exercise in me being quiet, which is really hard. It’s like so about my personality.”

“I’ll be interested to see how this one goes because I feel like I will be battling Harper’s persona and the perception of her,” she mused, before admitting: “All that said, I want to be a Traitor. Obviously!”

Asked what inspired her to sign up for The Celebrity Traitors, Miranda Hart explained: “My decision making in life generally – and certainly [with] work – is ‘follow the joy’.

“I haven’t done much TV work for a long time, having only recently come out of long-term ill health issues, and when I was offered this, my whole body sort of relaxed. I smiled, and I just wanted to jump about like a schoolgirl with joy. It’s just fun. It’s outdoors, it’s games. All the stuff I love. It’s play basically.”

The Miranda star disclosed that she’s “still living with elements of ME”, which can bring “fatigue and pain to manage”, but added: “I’ve come to a point where I feel well enough to step out, and that’s also partly why I’m doing this. The joy of mucking about on television again will hopefully outweigh some of the challenges.

“And I think it will be challenging on my body, so it’ll be interesting, and it’ll take some courage as this is a big next step.

“When you live with a chronic illness, it’s invisible, so people don’t know that you’re sitting there in pain. But then it reminds you that everybody’s got their thing.

“So, I’m also really looking forward to making friends and looking after each other and hopefully they can carry me up a hill or whatever we’re going to have to do!”

Bella Ramsey said: “There are some real fans of The Traitors in my family.

“Seeing the cast list come out, there are people that my sister is so excited about, people that we watched growing up together.

“I’m very excited to play with Miranda. Her show was so brilliant, and I just love her so that’s really exciting.”

The mathematician and author claimed she was “here to fulfil the nerd quota for the year”, a “responsibility” she insisted she was taking “extremely seriously”.

“Have I gone back through the data of all the previous games and tried to find statistically significant patterns? Yes!” she said. “Are any of these going to help me? Honestly, who knows?!

“There is a pattern in the way that Traitors behave. For example, Traitors often do a burn vote in the first few episodes when they’re settling in. By that, I mean they just vote for somebody that nobody else has voted for. Cat [Burns] last year was a really good example of this…

“But across the board, the only problem with picking up on those signals is that the Faithfuls are such an absolute mess. They are so all over the place that it’s really hard to pick out what the signal is. That’s just one example of a little bit of Maths that I’ve got in my back pocket.”

“Whether it’s going to work or not, honestly, your guess is as good as mine!” she confessed. “I’ve got spreadsheets coming out of my eyeballs. I close my eyes and it’s like there are numbers tattooed on the inside of my eyelids at the moment for how much I’ve been looking at them.”

Hannah added: “I definitely have a public persona of being someone who is smart. I would say, people tend to think I’m smarter than I actually am, bluntly, and I don’t think that’s going to serve me particularly well as I may be seen as a bit of a threat.

“I might actually try and chuck out a few false theories, so I’m seen to be a bit of an idiot and not a threat at all.”

For Romesh Ranganathan, this prep included swotting up on “sports psychology books”.

“One of the things that I realised about this is the pressure really gets to you so that can throw your judgement off,” he suggested. “I want to remain completely cool and calm, so I’ve read some books about how to try and stay chilled in moments of pressure.

“I don’t really feel anything anyway, generally, but I think this is a specific thing.”

However, this is something he’s already found himself struggling with during his limited Celebrity Traitors experience.

Romesh recalled: “I was on The Jonathan Ross Show, and Joe Marler asked me if I was going to be on The Celebrity Traitors. I knew that I was, but I also knew that I couldn’t say. Even that felt really difficult.

“Up until that point, I thought I’d be alright at sort of lying, but now I don’t. That basically shook my confidence completely.”

“I’ve been playing a version of The Traitors since I was 10 years old when I joined The Television Workshop,” the two-time Emmy nominee claimed. “I’ve had game evenings and hosted them at my house and been to other’s evenings, so I’m familiar with the game.”

They enthused: “I love it so much, and that was really my reason [for taking part]. I was working on a production at the time of the last Celebrity Traitors – it’s called Maya which was filmed in Scotland, actually. We were all watching and so excited about it, and then we ended up playing a crew game.”

Bella continued: “I was playing a game as recently as two days ago. I was at my friend’s birthday, and we played.

“And a few weeks before that, I’d been hosting a game evening, so I’ve been playing it pretty regularly!”

“I do like games,” they continued. “I’m competitive to the level that I want to feel like I’ve done a good job. Not necessarily to win or triumph over others but to know I’ve played my best game. I feel the same about this. I want to stay in because I want to play the game. I just really enjoy it.”

“I’m going to say it – it’s the best show on TV,” the Bafta winner gushed. “The first series [of the regular Traitors] was just such phenomenally good television, and I didn’t think that it could be bettered, and then the celeb series came along

“The last episode was beautiful. That first year I sent a DM on Twitter, which was not responded to, to Studio Lambert to ask if they could send me all the rushes.

“I just was so hit by it and wanted more.”

He continued: “I am just thrilled to be part of the universe of The Traitors and to have been asked.

“I have no idea how to play it. I don’t think you can particularly. I think you just have to let it play itself a little bit.”

“A lot of my friends and family didn’t think I’d ever come on a show like this,” the comic said. “The truth is I didn’t think I would do this show because I really enjoy it.

“It’s one of those shows that’s a family event in our house, so we all sit down to watch it, and those things are few and far between now.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I do watch things and not ask to go on them!” he joked of his reputation for appearing on so many TV shows. “So, I was watching it, and we’re having a good time, and I’d never had any aspirations of being on the show, and then my youngest son was desperate for me to come on, so it’s kind of his fault.”

She revealed: “When someone said on Instagram, ‘Oh, I hope you gallop in the castle’, I foolishly replied, ‘Right, I now take that as a dare’. So that was idiotic of me.

“I will have to at some point gallop down a corridor. I’ll gallop when no one’s watching…”

“Or who would be the best person to encourage to gallop? I don’t know,” she pondered. “I mean, Kenny probably doesn’t even know who I am. So, if I could get him to gallop… I could get a new generation galloping.”

“It went a little Artful Dodger for this series,” she teased. “I borrow a lot of the clothes and the shops/designers were horrified when I asked if we could dip the clothes in tea.”

The full list of 21 celebrities on the line-up is as follows:

• Amol Rajan
• Bella Ramsey
• Professor Hannah Fry
• James Acaster
• James Blunt
• Jerry Hall
• Joanne McNally
• Joe Lycett
• Julie Hesmondhalgh
• Kenny Oghenovo “King Kenny” Ojuederie
• Leigh-Anne Pinnock
• Maya Jama
• Michael Sheen
• Miranda Hart
• Myha’la
• Richard E Grant
• Rob Beckett
• Romesh Ranganathan
• Ross Kemp
• Sebastian Croft
• Sharon Rooney

The Celebrity Traitors returns on Thursday 1 October on BBC One and iPlayer.

Despite popular perceptions of the ageing process, some research has found that improvement in either physical or mental health in later life is not only possible, but common.

One 12-year study found almost half of the 11,000+ seniors participating either got faster at walking (linked to better outcomes in older age) or performed better in cognitive tests more than a decade after their 65th birthday.

Which begs the question: can individual habits make improvement, or decline, more or less likely?

Of course, some conditions and health concerns are beyond people’s control. But speaking to HuffPost UK, endocrinologist Dr William Hsu, chief medical officer at L-Nutra, said there are a few habits which “consistently stand out”.

The study we talked about earlier found that typically, people who had a more positive view of ageing were more likely to see improvements after 65.

So, perhaps it’s not a surprise that Dr Hsu said: “One of the most important things I have observed is that the people who become healthier with age do not treat decline as inevitable.

“They pay attention to what their bodies are doing, make intentional changes, and measure whether those changes are working.”

Strength training is a great way to protect your joints, muscles, and bones as you age, thus preventing the risk of falls and fractures.

And, Dr Hsu told us: “Muscle is not only important for strength and mobility. It is one of the body’s primary sites for glucose disposal and plays a central role in metabolic health.

“The people who remain strong as they age tend to prioritise resistance training, adequate protein, and regular daily movement.”

The expert added that challenging yourself with bigger weights or more intense workouts as you progress is key here.

Dr Hsu said that people who improve with age usually “know their blood pressure, fasting glucose, hemoglobin A1C, cholesterol, waist circumference, and body composition, and they pay attention to how those markers change over time”.

That way, he stated, they can focus on their body’s overall trends rather than trying to rely on one specific marker.

“A result can fall within the ‘normal’ range while still moving in the wrong direction. The trajectory often tells us more than one snapshot,” he said.

Diets rich in fruits, veg, nuts, pulses, beans, whole grains, and legumes and lower in processed and sugary foods and red meat have long been associated with a longer, healthier life.

“These foods support glucose regulation, cardiovascular health, the gut microbiome, and healthy ageing,” said the doctor.

And while you might have heard that protein is key for good health, the expert revealed: “The healthiest older adults consume enough protein to preserve muscle, but they do not allow a singular focus on protein to displace the plants and fiber that provide broader metabolic benefits.”

Indeed, one study found that too much protein seemed associated with negative health effects among sedentary older people.

“The point is not to minimise protein but to get enough of the right amino acids from plants, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, with fish or a modest amount of other protein where appropriate, so that muscle has the building blocks it needs without overshooting into growth signalling that accelerates ageing,” Dr Hsu clarified.

“Exercise is one example: the body becomes stronger in response to a manageable stress followed by adequate recovery,” the doctor said.

“Nutrition may also be structured this way,” he continued, pointing to the fasting mimicking diet (FMD), which has been shown to lower people’s biological age.

To be clear, Dr Hsu said, “this is not about chronically restricting food”.

“It is about using a defined, time-limited intervention and then returning to nourishing, sustainable eating,” he said.

Bear in mind, though, that not everyone is suited to this eating style. Frail, breastfeeding, or pregnant people, as well as those with some health conditions or who are on regular medications, are advised to avoid the pattern; speak to your doctor if you’re not sure.

And going too long without food (16-18 hours a day) is linked to a higher risk of gallstones. Longevity expert Dr Valter Longo said a 12-hour fasting/eating split is “very common among people who have record lifespans”, and “seems to match both science and tradition”.

“Attention and cognitive capacity benefit from use. People who remain mentally engaged tend to keep learning, maintain meaningful relationships, protect their sleep, exercise regularly, and reduce the constant digital interruptions that fragment attention,” added Dr Hsu.

“The brain responds to many of the same inputs that support the rest of the body, particularly movement, metabolic health, sleep, and social connection.”

Reading and engaging with challenging brain puzzles have been associated with a lower dementia risk, while maintaining great relationships can help you live longer overall.

“Healthy ageing,” the doctor ended, “is not simply the absence of deterioration. I have seen people gain strength, improve blood sugar and cholesterol, reduce visceral fat, and become more physically capable later in life. The body retains a meaningful capacity to adapt.

“The goal is to give it the right inputs, assess the response, and continue adjusting over time.”

When Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother were murdered with a hatchet in their Massachusetts home in 1892, the 32-year-old became the prime suspect.

Although Lizzie was later acquitted of her crimes, the case has continued to fascinate people, and is still being discussed more than a century later.

Now, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Netflix anthology series, Monster, has brought Lizzie’s gruesome story to the forefront yet again – albeit with some creative license applied.

Starring Ella Beatty alongside Charlie Hunnam and Rebecca Hall, true crime fans have been tuning in to watch the fourth iteration of Monster, which explores themes of female rage and repression, in their droves.

But how did the Monster team go about bringing The Lizzie Borden Story to the small screen in all its gore-filled glory?

Here are 19 behind-the-scenes facts you probably didn’t know about Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’s creation…

After seasons following Jeffrey Dahmer, Lyle and Erik Menendez and Ed Gein, Monster’s showrunners felt like it was time for a woman to take centre stage.

“[It] just felt like we owed it,” co-creator Ian Brennan told People in August. “We’d sort of over-indexed on men for the series, and it just felt like this was the right time and the right subject to look at to look squarely at the idea of female rage.”

After the team decided they wanted a woman to lead season four, they soon discovered they had a smaller pool of female killers to select from.

In the end, Ian said that he and his collaborators wound up settling on Lizzie Borden because, while she is “enigmatic as a historical figure” and the case of her family’s murders is infamous, little is really known about the woman herself.

“When we began to dig into the research, I was just immediately taken with how much I felt for her and how much I got why she did what she did,” he recalled.

“There was something that was really, really, very likable about her as a person despite the crime that I think she likely committed because she was sort of a caged animal.”

He added that Lizzie was a “product of a time [when] it was really difficult to be a young woman”.

The third season of Monster, The Ed Gein Story, jumped back and forth in time, connecting the killer to Nazi Ilsa Koch and the actor Anthony Perkins, who played a character inspired by Ed Gein in Psycho.

Similarly, while the fourth series of Monster centres mostly on Lizzie Borden, it does also feature two notorious female killers from very different eras.

The Lizzie Borden Story links its central figure, who was born in the 1800s, with Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century noblewoman nicknamed the Bloody Countess, and Aileen Wuornos, a serial killer who murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990.

Ian felt that incorporating these two women into the story added a “third dimension”, telling People: “It just made it come alive all the more.”

Ella Beatty has also explained why the two unconnected murderers make an appearance in the series.

“The show is exploring a legacy of female rage and reaction to the set of circumstances that they are presented with,” Ella told Tudum, adding that the showrunners were keen to explore how female rage connected Aileen and Lizzie.

“Every season of Monster has been an exercise in understanding the person’s psychology. Are they born or are they made?” she added. “I knew from the beginning that Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan were really interested in exploring what brings a woman to the point of violence.”

Co-creator Ian also highlighted the idea of female rage when talking about the show’s multi-generational subplots.

“We were able to look at rage, female rage, and women who kill as less of an aberration throughout time than actually a throughline and an aspect of our species and existence in society,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in September.

“The cages that we put women in and the things they will do to get out of those cages was really interesting.”

Regular Ryan Murphy collaborator Sarah Paulson was chosen to star as the real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

“She’s an unbelievable actor who does so much preparation and physical work. It was my first time working with her and I was stunned by what happens when she comes out on set,” director Max Winkler told The Hollywood Reporter.

“My favourite scene that she did – because it really allowed her to improvise a lot – was the scene with her having her final meal,” the director admitted, revealing he cried when watching her perform Aileen’s sentimental last moments. “Just the mixture between protective strength and unbelievable vulnerability,”.

Sarah also already had a working relationship with Ella, having previously acted with her in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Appropriate, for which she won a Tony Award.

“We met doing a play together three years ago and became very close. She was such a part of the creative process for me from the very beginning,” Ella enthused to Tudum.

“We cast a super wide net and nobody could do it until we saw her,” co-showrunner Ian told Tudum.

He added: “They say you can tell within the first five seconds if the actor has the role, and that was completely the case here, after watching very good actresses try.”

The actor – who is the daughter of Hollywood icons Annette Bening and Warren Beatty – immediately felt connected with Lizzie Borden when the project first came her way.

“I remember making the audition tape and thinking, ‘I understand this person’,” she told Variety.

“When I found out that I had gotten the part, I was over the moon and also really scared. I felt a huge responsibility to the part, to the anthology, to the real person,” she added.

“I think immediately I just wanted to start working on it. How does she move? How does she dream? How does she think? How does she speak? How does she blink?”

Little to nothing is known about Abby Borden, other than the fact she was killed by her stepdaughter more than 130 years ago.

Played in Monster by Rebecca Hall, Lizzie’s stepmother is portrayed in the series as deeply unhappy, displaying cruelty toward her stepdaughter and frustration in her marriage.

This characterisation was largely created by the writers, due to how little has been recorded about Abby Borden.

“There’s very little about her out there, and I could already tell from reading the script that Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy had taken liberties and created a character that they were interested in for this show,” she told Collider. “So I felt like the only thing I could do was do the same thing,”

Rebecca admitted the lack of public information about her character gave her freedom to create something “unique and specific”, deliberately trying not to take inspiration from past depictions of “evil stepmothers” from fairytale lore.

The Golden Globe nominee looked to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford to create Abby’s specific accent.

“When I was thinking about the accent, which I wanted to be not really from anywhere as much as just Abby, I kept thinking about those mid-Atlantic accents that actors created in the 1930s that didn’t actually exist but had this sort of affect of like, ‘I’m extremely posh and elitist’,” she added to Collider.

“We had such a great time working on the last season. It was just a joy,” Ian told People. “Charlie, you just can’t get enough of it. He’s so lovely and has such a great presence on set, and it just felt like, ‘Oh, this is perfect for him’.”

The showrunner was particularly impressed with Charlie’s range and ability to make any character sympathetic, no matter how evil they were.

“He just rounds out every character with this deep well of sympathy that really filled out what could otherwise be a stereotypical bad dad,” Ian added. “He really filled [the character] out in such beautiful detail.”

While people already knew plenty about Ed Gein before Monster dedicated a season to him, comparably, the same could not be said for Andrew Borden.

However, this proved to be a positive thing for the actor playing him.

“[I was] liberated from the responsibility of playing a historical figure because there’s just not that much known, and so we were able to invent him to a certain degree,” Charlie told People. “It’s a real fertile playground for actors to come into this world.”

While there are no reports of Andrew Borden having had a stutter in real life, this was a trait that felt right to Charlie when he was reading the script.

“There’s one moment in the script that [the writer] wrote in that he sort of has a stutter, but it’s in a moment of sort of emotional duress,” he explained to CBR.

The Sons Of Anarchy actor explained that “that stutter in that voice just started to present itself to me” as he continued “running back” to the script and “exploring it further”.

The cast and crew of Monster couldn’t film the show inside Lizzie Borden’s real home, as the rumoured haunted house is now a bed and breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts.

“I couldn’t believe that,” Monster co-showrunner Ian Brennan admitted about the discovery of the house’s new lease of life as a B&B. “It’s stunning.”

As a result, the scenes set in her house were actually filmed on a purpose-made set in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the subplot involving Elizabeth Báthory was filmed in a castle in Rome, rather than Báthor Castle, where the countess lived in real life, about 170 miles from Budapest in a town called Nyírbátor.

“We had shot season four, most of it, in LA,” cinematographer Michael Bauman told CBR back in January. “But we have about five weeks of work [in] Rome. There are lots of castles here, and that’s mainly the reason [we filmed there].”

The team behind Monster loved Vicky Krieps so much in The Ed Gein Story, they cast her twice in the follow-up. She appears as both Bridget and Countess Elizabeth Báthory in season four of the anthology.

Vicky was chosen to play the rebellious maid who introduces Lizzie to hair dye and sex toys first.

“The way Ryan thought of it, she’s almost like a Mary Poppins that comes out of nowhere, who can be anyone from any time,” Vicky told Vanity Fair about Bridget. “Ryan said, ‘It’s women-driven, feminist, lesbian, dirty, unapologetic’.”

During filming, the show’s creator then offered her another role, as the bloodthirsty countess in the fantasy flashbacks.

“That was all shot in Italy, so we knew that that would be at the end of the schedule anyway, and we just couldn’t think of who would do it or who seemed right,” Ian explained to Tudum.

“It was Ryan’s idea. He pitched it to her and she loved it. Now it seems like such an obvious choice, but it actually came very late in the process.”

The new episodes of Monster reunited co-stars Vicky Krieps and Charlie Hunnam, who both starred in season three as Ilse Koch and Ed Gein.

Having worked together before, Vicky knew she could push Charlie in the scenes they shared.

“[We] joke a lot on set to make it fun or to just push each other in the scenes. Like, how far can we go? What can we do?” she told People at the New York City premiere last month. “We had a fight scene together, and he said, ‘You know, you can really go for it.’”

She recalled: “I’m saying, ‘But I’m really strong.’ He says, ‘That’s fine,’ and he’s really strong, so he doesn’t mind.”

Things escalated even further when Charlie fell to the floor, only for his co-star to spit on him.

“He gets up, he’s like, ‘What? What did you just do? You just spat on me. You can’t do that,’” she recalled.

A miniseries about a young girl acquitted for the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother might not sound like a natural comedy, but Ryan Murphy wanted the tone of season four to be much lighter than Monster’s previous outings.

“I felt like the tone was slightly different from [The Ed Gein Story],” Charlie told Entertainment Weekly. “It was a little more irreverent, a little more sort of bonkers, theatrical, [a] little bit more comedy, tonally than the past season that I had done. So it just felt like a fun opportunity.”

Rebecca saw her role as the villainous stepmother as a chance to unleash her comedic side.

“I’ve never played a true out-and-out villain,” she told Variety. “I just loved on the page how funny she was. It just felt like such an opportunity to be both funny and scary at the same time, which is an interesting tonal challenge.”

Director Max Winkler also confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the show is intentionally comedic, which presented its own challenges.

“It was really challenging to make because a lot of it is comedic, with the insane way that people wrote and spoke and had expectations for women in that time period,” the Love Story director explained. “Which is not that long ago…”

He added: “1890 is so laughably insane, and the fact that there’s still some crossover to it today and that half of the internet thinks that we should go back to that way of life? It lends itself to make fun of it.”

“Sometimes the blood on my face was hand-painted with makeup brushes,” Ella told Tudum. “Sometimes it was literally poured onto me. Sometimes it came from what’s called a blood rig. So every time I would slam an axe onto the blood rig, fake blood would shoot out onto my face and body.”

Describing the process as both “realistic” and “messy”, she also shared a little behind-the-scenes hack for how they removed the blood with “a healthy dose of shaving cream”.

When blood isn’t being splattered in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the cast had puke and diarrhoea to contend with.

Most notably, the episode Strong Kitty is definitely not one for the squeamish – with Abby and Andrew Borden unknowingly sitting down for a meal of spoiled oysters, resulting in them projectile vomiting and running to the bathroom before long.

The crew spent much time and energy creating the gross scene, with director Max recalling to The Wrap: “That was a very messy, difficult day, but I am very pleased with how it turned out.

“Jack Price – our editor on that episode, was incredible in finding the musicality of it all.”

To make that gross scene as realistic as possible, they hooked Rebecca and Charlie up with subtly-disguised tubes, which the prop team filled with a disgusting orange liquid to recreate projectile vomiting.

“Rebecca has a very hard time being around vomiting and said very early that she is inclined to vomit if she’s around it,” the director explained to The Wrap. “So that was my biggest fear, protecting Rebecca.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he added: “Rebecca did one of the bravest things, because it’s a real thing, her thing.

“She was like shaking, so her courage to do that and to trust me… we tried to do it as quickly as possible, and it pays off because she’s so amazing in it. Intricate dinner scenes are always challenging.”

It wasn’t any easier for Charlie, who “ate the oysters that were canned because we needed them to be super big”.

“Charlie was a hero that day, but so was Rebecca,” Max said of his cast during his interview with The Wrap.

Charlie told Entertainment Weekly that he’s “kind of a germaphobe”, making the scene particularly unpleasant to film for him.

“Even if it’s fake vomit, being covered head to toe in vomit and diarrhoea for the day did not seem like a particularly enjoyable experience,” he shared. “And, indeed, it wasn’t.”

Luckily, Rebecca didn’t find it as bad as she was worried it would be.

“It was so funny and preposterous, and nothing was remotely like real vomiting, actually,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “It turned out that my biggest challenge was maintaining a straight face when the camera was on me, because I don’t think I’ve ever laughed more.”

Season four’s final moments focus on Aileen Wuornos’ execution. As she sits in the electric chair, she sees Lizzie and Maggie beckoning her towards the light.

“I always knew the last shot was going to be Aileen’s body and the curtain closing to match the ornate beautiful curtain of the fairytale version of ‘Lizzie was this crazy person!’ and then the actual reality,” director Max told The Hollywood Reporter.

Meanwhile, Ian told Tudum: “In a way, Lizzie has a happy ending, and Aileen didn’t. She didn’t get away with anything. So it felt right to land on her and give her, if not a happy ending, one that is satisfying.”

As the show concludes, I Know by Fiona Apple plays. The director explained to The Hollywood Reporter why he felt the Grammy winner’s music was perfect for that final scene.

Describing the artist as “someone else who’s been objectified for being incredible and brilliant and talented”, and had a “back turned on her for being difficult or traumatised or whatever”, Max added: “That song, that moment of an artist I admire so much helped me kind of close the loop.”

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is available to stream on Netflix now.