Gap Yah actor Matt Lacey opened the TNT Travel Show today and gave us some exclusive insights into cringeworthy posho Orlando, whose gap yah “chundering” all over the developing world became a YouTube sensation, racking up more than three million hits.
Not seen Gay Yah yet? Then watch it here.
So who is Orlando? Matt reckons that he’s based on a variety of people he met on his travels.
“There’s definitley a little Orlando out there,” he says. Amazingly, says Lacey, people who recognise themselves in the charcter are often pretty proud of the resemblance. “A lot of them love it,” he says. “They’ll say ‘That’s literally me.’ They embrace it!”
So has Matt been on a gap year himself? Yes, but he went to Ireland to work in a Chinese restaurant. And no, as far as he can remember he “didn’t chunder in many places”.
Lacey admits to having reservations about Western people travelling to poverty stricken areas as part of their ‘gap yah’.
“I saw a lot of people going ‘township tours’, experiencing poverty through their tinted windows,” he says.
If you’re a Gay Yah fan and want to her more of Orlando’s “philosophical ramblings” then you’re in luck. Orlando (with a bit of help from Matt) has just written a book called Gap Yah Planner (published by Harper Collins and out soon).
The TNT Travel Show, sponsored by taxback.com, is at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, Earl’s Court, until 6pm, Saturday, March 19.
