Photo by ITV Plc / Plimsoll Productions
Doubtless it won’t have escaped your notice that this summer, Steven Spielberg’s briny masterpiece Jaws is 50 years old. But how to mark such an important cultural anniversary? At ITV, commissioning editors quickly pulled on their (rubberised) thinking caps and after some seconds of contemplation the word “celebrity” floated into their minds, like a dubious shoal of microplastics finally reaching shore.
Yes! What if scaredy-cat famous people could be induced to swim with sharks, the better to prove that Spielberg, for all his brilliance with the camera, had done these creatures a grave disservice? No one would be voted off in this full-fathom show. Instead, all seven would return to Blighty as fully signed-up “shark ambassadors”, a role that, if nothing else, would surely help them with the apex predators who inhabit the stormy seas of show business.
My guess is that persuading Lenny Henry and the others wasn’t, in the end, too difficult. Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters isn’t 24/7 jungle camping, and those human bottom feeders Nigel Farage and Nadine Dorries, are nowhere in sight (unless one of them is unaccountably lurking under that bit of bladderwrack over there). Handily, the Bahamas are the shark capital of the world, home to 40 species, and who would ever complain at the thought of a few days by an azure sea? A nice break, especially for Henry, who’s also a brand ambassador for Premier Inn.
Admittedly, there’s a bad moment when our celebs are greeted by Paul de Gelder, one of the experts who’ll be looking after them, only for him to reveal that his missing arm and leg were bitten off by a 10ft bull shark in Sydney Harbour; absorbing the sight of his prosthetic limbs, Lucy Punch adopts a rictus smile that’s more than worthy of her influencer alter-ego in Amandaland. But never mind. Grab your sunscreen and chuck another calamari on the barbecue – the producers say everything’s going to be fine.
Punch’s view of sharks is that they are “savage tubes of teeth”, a description that doesn’t for me entirely distinguish them from some of their human counterparts. But like Countdown’s Rachel Riley and McFly’s bassist, Dougie Poynter (if any reality show is to be worth the name in 2025, it must have a member of McFly or of Busted among its participants), she’s very game. Show her a wetsuit, a metal cage and a substantial shiver of bull sharks and – splash – she won’t hesitate. Ditto the TV presenter and disability advocate Ade Adepitan and the comedian Ross Noble, both of whom are phlegmatic almost to the point of slicking themselves with tomato ketchup, the better some hungry fish might enjoy their dinner. Only Helen George (Call the Midwife) quails at the thought of the deep. She doesn’t like to put her head under water, which sounds like a disqualification for a show like this, but in fact may be the reason she was recruited. Someone needs to go on a “journey” after all.
Amazingly, ITV has spun this out into five episodes, the last of which will apparently culminate in the celebrities swimming freestyle (ie minus a metal cage) with tiger sharks: quite a strange goal when you think about it, and I kept asking myself why. Sharks are important to the health of the seas. Many species are under threat. Conservation is vital. Bloody headlines apart, there are only about 70 shark attacks a year, involving five or six deaths. But none of this makes them cuddlesome. Leave them alone! Don’t send Helen George into the water, shrieking about her feet. Don’t expect them to put up with Lenny Henry’s well-rehearsed jokes about how this whole experience is more real than “panto in Lewisham”.
When, in the first episode, a juvenile lemon shark nipped Ross Noble’s leg, I felt a sense of utmost solidarity. Go, fish! Perhaps, like me, the poor thing had grown weary of the lines we were being thrown about gills and mangroves and ancient times (sharks predate the trees). Why pretend this stuff is even remotely educational? Steven Spielberg may well regret the negative impact his movie had on the feelings of an entire generation for sharks; speaking personally, my PTSD in this matter is ongoing, as anyone who has ever seen me swimming will testify. But he had absolutely everything else right. Let’s cut to the action.
Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters
ITV
[See also: Lena Dunham has made TV funny again]
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