Two quick stories: once, in a London hotel, a film publicist came to find me. Bursting with the pride of a tigress with a newborn cub, she shouted down the corridor: “I’ve got you four minutes with Orlando!”
The other took place in a Soho café, when two TV agents pressed me to consider championing their beloved clients’ move from magic to cookery. I nearly choked on my macaroon. This was proper “youth hostelling with Chris Eubank” territory, as proffered by Alan Partridge. It turned out, in the world of televisual evolution, monkey tennis is very real.
I mention these two incidents to shed some light on twin beliefs that threaten to consume our entire entertainment ecosystem: the first, that any time spent in the company of a famous face, on screen or off, is superior to that spent with what Liz Hurley helpfully calls “civilians”; the second, that celebrities will do anything, from boiling an egg to being taken hostage, if it means staying under the warm spotlight of another TV commission.
The result? As pointed out in Ms Shearer’s recent letter to RT’s Feedback (thank you!), a schedule that includes Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim, Bear Grylls – Wild Reckoning, Dickinson’s Real Deal, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Hippo Watch with Steve Backshall… all of them on TV on a single random Friday.
This week sees the arrival of Celebrity Sabotage, in which a gaggle of familiar faces set out to hoodwink unsuspecting members of the public who think they are taking part in brand-new ITV shows. How did we get here?
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In 1997, the BBC One series Driving School simply followed learner drivers around Bristol and South Wales. What they hadn’t planned for was one Maureen Rees. By the time the cleaner from Cardiff had passed her test at the seventh attempt, 12 million people had tuned in. An appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the release of her version of Madness’s Driving in My Car followed. An unlikely sensation had become a star.
Two decades later, Paul Whitehouse invited his real-life pal Bob Mortimer to go fishing. So serene was their day out, Whitehouse invited the cameras to watch “two old blokes doing very little”. Eight series later, Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing enjoys the highest score of any show on the BBC’s audience appreciation index.
Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer. BBC/Owl Power/Tom Jackson
Pretty much every factual entertainment show in today’s schedule is an attempt to emulate the success of one of these two models, either a) normal people becoming celebrities, or b) celebrities doing the most normal of things. Clive Myrie revealed that the BBC basically asked him, “What would you like to do?” Sensibly, he opted for a drive through Tuscany and a lesson in making pasta. Entertaining enough, but it does seem to be a case of tail wagging dog, person before idea, Fiat 500 before horse.
What’s the problem? Diminishing returns in a culture built on the belief that nothing’s worth watching without a sprinkling of celebrity stardust – because I’m not sure TV bosses have thought it through.
They can fish in a familiar pool, leading to cries of “Not her again!”, or they can delve into the industrial pipeline of “talent” – Strictly dancers, Love Island alumni – in the hope that one of these becomes the new Bob Monkhouse, or at least a This Morning presenter.
Not all celebs are born the same, but you would never know it from the schedules. Did I really see Michael Ball presenting The One Show the day after he guested on it? Maybe it was a dream.
News just in: a new series coming soon to 5, Sam and Ade Go Birding. Samuel West and Adrian Edmondson, two familiar, popular people, doing a thing. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll go in with an open mind – maybe for a full four minutes.
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Celebrity Sabotage begins at 8pm on Saturday 21 March on ITV1 and ITVX.
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