BBC news and current affairs are a woke joke.
Its sport and comedy have gone the same way, while Beeb dramas now lag behind ITV and the soaps are all on their long walk to the knacker’s yard.
Yet there is one part of the schedule the Corporation has absolutely nailed.
And it’s Saturday evenings, from the end of the 5.40pm regional news right up until Romesh Ranganathan has laid waste to another bunch of Weakest Link contestants with more brutal contempt than I ever thought he had in him.
It begins, though, with the return of 1990s favourite Gladiators, with Bradley Walsh at the helm.
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Another TV reboot that filled me with a certain amount of dread, if I’m honest, and not just because the host appeared to be treating it as a bring-your-child-to-work day with son Barney in tow, when what it really required was someone like Sky Sports’ Emma Paton doing the sidekick stuff.
Menace and comedy
For how the hell, I wondered, would a channel that had just ripped the guts out of A Question Of Sport, thanks to its political and youth obsessions, avoid doing the exact same thing to another cast-iron telly classic?
Somehow or other, though — and it’s probably because they all watched it as kids — they’ve left this very impressive and respectful new version well alone.
A heroic act of restraint that would’ve been beyond me as I’m not the first to think the new Gladiators would’ve carried a lot more menace and comedy if their names had been updated to accommodate more 21st century threats.
So, instead of Giant, Sabre, Dynamite, Phantom, Steel, Apollo and Fury, the first deaf Gladiator, for instance, I’d have had: Rehab, TikTw*t, Bunny Boiler, Semi, Anusol, “Radicalised” and Mutton, the first deaf Gladiator.
I’d have been horribly and distastefully wrong, though.
Too much irony? The entire show falls apart and you also miss the point that the only originals everyone remembers, for vastly different reasons, are Jet and Wolf, who’ve both got like-for-like replacements here with Viper, the new resident s***house and Diamond, who will ensure every Saturday at 5.50pm is now “Dad o’clock”.
It’s a smart move by the production team, although I’m slightly less taken with the changing room footage (never pull back the magic curtain) and the biographical details, which tend to sound a lot more fun than some of the games when you read, “Sabre can lift 160kg, that’s like lifting a baby elephant,” which I’d love to see her try.
While it also takes a very limited amount of skill to revive yet another old format, the BBC has shown a surprising level of gumption by recognising no TV show in history, with the exception of Total Wipeout, has managed the subtle Saturday evening transformation from sports results to light entertainment quite as brilliantly as Gladiators. It would be an empty gesture, however, if there was nothing at the end.
Fortunately for us, this is where the real magic happens and Gladiators segues into the Big Show with Michael McIntyre, who understands the viewers better than anyone else at the BBC and should probably be running the place.
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You win no cred points for admitting you like McIntyre and love his Big Show, obviously, but I’m too decrepit to worry about these things any more.
It’s proper, old-school, family entertainment that rarely falls into the trap of being cheesy or naff because the host clearly cares about every single detail, right down to the excellent actors who set up Tony Hadley for this weekend’s Unexpected Star trap.
McIntyre can also ad-lib brilliantly, which often disguises the fact his Send To All mobile phone segment has fallen into a “me and my famous friends” rut.
Like all the best comedians, though, he knows exactly when to shut up and let the public take the starring role.
As it did magnificently during a hidden camera stunt with an obsessive batch cooker called Shaun, who was served up his own sausage casserole at Tom Kerridge’s restaurant which had him spitting: “It’s like ****ing cat meat” and the audience reacting with a sound so beautiful, sincere and rare, I thought we might never hear it again on Saturday night British television.
Laughter.
Egos on shaky ground
TWO weeks on from ITV’s greatest-ever triumph, in the midweek 9pm slot, I’m watching someone called Georgia H claim: “I was a completely different person then and I’ve got new tits now.
“So I’ve evolved.”
Evolved from what exactly, Georgia H didn’t say.
It was a shock, though, because, exactly a fortnight earlier, ITV had been changing Britain for the better with Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and now it was offering us Love Island All Stars, a grim five-week imposition that’ll eat away at the original show’s popularity just as surely as The Masked Dancer has helped destroy the charm of the singing version.
They’re not “All Stars” either, obviously. They’re just the ex-Islanders who are unemployed and desperate enough to take part. Not that they’d recognise this description of themselves.
For their IQs may be at room temperature levels but the egos are off the scale, particularly Georgia H, who said of any prospective partner: “They have to be willing to be connected to me ’cos I want to have someone I can go on the red carpets with.”
I wish her well with that and the Shake n’ Vac auditions.
- FURTHERMORE, ITV, Iain Stirling: “It’s time to say ‘hello’ to 12 solid gold Love Island legends.” Click. See ya.
THE Price of Perfection, ITVX, Olivia Attwood: “My face needs a bit of attention, last time I checked I am a TV star.”
Then check again.
DANCING On Ice. RE: Hannah Spearritt, Holly Willoughby: “Any idea what the S stands for in S Club?”
7/2 – Semi-retired, 6-1 – Sabbatical, 16-1 – Sofa surfer. 33/1 bar.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
CELEBRITY Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “In men’s cricket, which English team won the 2023 County Championship?”
Fats Timbo: “South Africa.”
The Weakest Link: Celebrity Special, Romesh Ranganathan: “What word for a set of clothes worn by children at school represents the letter U in the NATO phonetic alphabet?” H from Steps: “United Nations.”
Romesh: “When he performs in a comedy double act with Bob Mortimer, the entertainer Jim Moir is known by what full name?” Mica Ven: “Morecambe and Wise.”
Romesh: “On a standard analogue clock face, what number does the minute hand point directly at to indicate half past the hour?”
Marcus Luther: “30.”
Random irritations
SOB stories, spiritual cranks and Gary Neville overwhelming Dragons’ Den, the Jethro Tull of business shows.
Maya Jama dropping the disturbing news, “There are now nine Love Island babies”.
C4’s Around The World In 80 Weighs excuse-mongers blaming everyone but themselves for their obesity.
The Jam’s classic 1980 song Start! being used to advertise a bloody supermarket.
And goalkeeper Mary Earps failing to win £30,000 on Celebrity Beat The Chasers, ’cos it still should be more than enough for her to retain the Sports Personality of the Year title, under current BBC “guidelines”.
Great sporting insights
GARETH AINSWORTH: “Shrewsbury took one of those long, short throw-ins.”
Teddy Draper: “As the saying goes, ‘We’re stretching at straws’.” And Steve Sidwell: “When the Villa fans get on your back, they can get on your back.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
COMPARE and contrast. BBC1 News, 1984, Michael Buerk, in Ethiopia: “Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plains outside Korem, it lights up a Biblical famine, now in the 20th century.”
BBC1 News, 2024, Catherine Byaruhanga: “Thousands of fans are expected to attend UK Dragcon, this weekend, including 119 former contestants from all 15 series of RuPaul’s Drag Race. We’ve sent our LGBT and Identity reporter Josh Parry to hit up a very noisy pink carpet.” BBC daily news: Born July 5, 1954. Died 70 years later from stupidity.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week.
Around The World In 80 Weighs, Therryi: “Society is a lot to blame for me being overweight.”
Beat The Chasers, Nish Kumar: “I’ve been doing comedy since 2008. You’d think I’d be better at it.” (I wouldn’t.)
And Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job, Amanda Holden: “I haven’t done any woodwork since school.”
Oh come now, Amanda. We all saw your performance in Wild At Heart.
TV Gold
THE extraordinary rescue footage and testimony of Nando Parrado and the other survivors on Channel 5’s Andes Plane Crash: The Fight To Survive.
Lee Mack pretending to do the Rubik’s Cube under the desk on Would I Lie To You?
The start-to-finish brilliance of Michael McIntyre’s Big Show on BBC1.
EastEnders saying goodbye to Aunt Sal, played by the great Anna Karen, with Chas & Dave’s Ain’t No Pleasing You, forever the karaoke song of The Sun’s much-missed sports writer Paul Jiggins.
And Ricky Hatton flattening Stephen Mulhern with a right jab to the chest at the climax of Dancing On Ice.
But don’t ever ask why he hit him, just enjoy watching this golden moment again and again and again.
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Mason the bully from Coronation Street and Bigwig from Watership Down. Sent in by Rob Ackland.
Picture research: AMY READING
