I’m A Celebrity comes at the right time of year.
It’s a burst of Australian sunshine (well, mostly anyway, though there have been some stinking downpours over the years) in the middle of our winter, a welcome respite from the dog days of December.
Above all, though, the show benefits from being live. A week after everyone has settled in, and we’ve realised the word ‘celebrity’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting, we watch to see who goes next.
I’m A Celebrity comes at the right time of year. Pic: Matt Crossick/Shutterstock for Global
Even though we don’t get to vote here, we trust our neighbours to do the right thing, though that’s far from a given in the post-Brexit world.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem with I’m A Celebrity… South Africa, which was pre-recorded last September.
It has dominated Virgin One all week, and while it will feature a live final in London to decide which of the all-star contestants to anoint with legend status, it’s hard to work up the enthusiasm to care. Without a vote, it literally doesn’t count.
Gemma Collins. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
There’s no jeopardy here and, without it, there’s precious little in the way of fun; it’s like being invited to a banquet before being told you can watch the others eat while you settle for a sandwich.
That’s far from the only problem, though, because there are much simpler ones.
Everyone competing here might indeed be on their second go round, but they either made very little impression the first time (Sinitta, anyone?), or they just weren’t very likeable.
Beverley Callard and Adam Thomas. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
More to the point, there was a lot of guff talked about why they came back for more.
I understand, to a degree, the motivation of those who endured the Welsh castle because of Covid restrictions and feel like they’re finally having the full experience, but most surely are doing it to move up one miserable letter on the celebrity list (from Z, one imagines), or for the money.
In truth, though, no amount of moolah would pay me to eat a bull’s dangly bits or a sheep’s lady garden, or sit with a globe on my head as it was filled with live snakes when campmates wildly overestimated how many people wash their hands after going to the loo.
Ashley Roberts with Scarlett Moffatt. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
The show has given a lot of airtime so far to Gemma Collins, who made her name on The Only Way Is Essex.
Collins is famous for being famous. It’s hard to think of anything of note she has done with her life, anything she has achieved, though the same could be said for Scarlett Moffatt, who became a star of television by watching television on Gogglebox. ‘Meta’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Collins is a drama queen. Her air fryer at home ‘sucked all the oxygen out of the kitchen’.
In a trial that involves a tank filling with water, she gets teary and says she doesn’t want to die. To die! What does she think she signed up for – The Hunger Games? I understand fears and phobias, but here’s a radical idea.
When the producers phone and ask if you’d like to participate again (or at all, since Collins survived just 72 hours first time round), just say no thanks and move on.
Still… I might tune in a fortnight from now to see who wins, though given the fact they’ll probably parlay any hollow victory into an appearance on another reality show, or as real as it can get when it was recorded eight months ago, I’ll probably spend that night washing my hair.
On Sky Atlantic, Matthew Macfadyen and Elizabeth Banks popped up (well, to be truthful, the latter popped down) in The Miniature Wife.
Already, two things have become clear – the show is a good six-episode series spread over ten, and it will depend a lot on the charisma of the two leads.
Put simply, after a row with her scientist husband Macfadyen, Banks accidentally finds herself shrunken to six inches in height; the trouble is he hasn’t yet worked out how to reverse the process.
This also happens at the very end of the first episode, which serves as a meandering preamble about a lover, and a bogus short story, and by the time it does, your interest will be tested to breaking point.
The Miniature Wife is one of those shows that sounds great on paper, but it has a long way to go if it is to deliver. It’s worth sticking with now for Banks, so good before as the likes of the jaded commentator in the Pitch Perfect movies and the feckless Sal on the Modern Family sitcom. Unlike her, though, your patience will be stretched, not shrunk.
Finally, a confession – I love a turf fire. Nothing beats the smell of peat burning away; it’s Ireland distilled (often is, actually, when whiskey is peated too).
Of course, we couldn’t continue harvesting it forever, not least when the European Union threatened us with eye-watering fines. The trouble with peat is that it’s a finite resource, calling to mind what an ad says: when it’s gone, it’s definitely gone.
There were protests by those who place short-termism over the long game, but whether we liked it or not, we waved briquettes goodbye and said slán to the sleán, and went for renewable Willow Warms.
RTÉ One’s bank holiday documentary For Peat’s Sake reminded us of a time when it reigned supreme as our primary source of fuel. I don’t know where you were on Friday night, but it was so wet and gloomy, a turf fire would have been just the ticket – provided it didn’t suck all the oxygen out of the room, of course.
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