SAY what you like about this year’s I’m A Celebrity line-up, the ITV show certainly knows how to get viewers talking about its £1.5million booking.
Film Nigel Farage stark naked in the shower, stick him up for the first eating challenge and then get Dec to leave just enough of a pause to invite the obvious response when dish number three arrives at the Jungle Pizzeria.
“Nigel. Camel anus, goat anus and crocodile anus . . . ”
. . . Are just three of the more flattering things you’ve been called during your political career.
Yet, the amazing thing is, if you’d lined up all the contestants, in order of annoyance, Farage would still have been lucky to make the top three, during the first two days in the camp.
A testament, I suppose, to the job done by the celebrity bookers who, probably as much through luck as judgment, seem to have assembled a hugely entertaining bunch of misfits to follow last year’s triumph with Matt Hancock.
Head and shoulders above all of them, in terms of nuisance factor, though, is a foghorning din of entitlement called Nella Rose who, without explaining why the hell she’s meant to be famous, introduced herself on Sunday by saying: “I don’t know when to shut up. I keep going and going and going and going and . . .”
Click.
Five minutes later, when I switched back on, Nella was still “going and going and going” and strange as it seems now, I actually thought there was a moment, during her eating challenge with Farage, when I might warm to the creature.
I was forgetting, though, 26-year-old Nella is a member of the grievance generation who, if they haven’t got a real one, will contrive an injustice, just as Nella did in the most poisonous and self-righteous manner possible with First Dates’ Fred, by feigning offence at his “old enough to be your dad” comment.
She now stands and sulks alone as the show’s chief irritant, which is no mean feat given that the company she’s keeping includes Made In Chelsea manchild Sam Thompson as well as Fred, who’s such a well-practised suck-up he actually told Britney Spears’ very tearful, very anonymous sister Jamie Lynn: “Both of you became so famous and so big.”
Fighting for breath under that lot, there’s also Josie Gibson, Danielle Harold, Marvin Humes and journalist Grace Dent, who couldn’t seem to make up her mind whether to turn up as Dot Cotton or Austin Powers at the opening episode, so went as both.
An operatic sense of self, has Grace, so she won’t be coping well with not being the centre of attention.
But that was never a possibility given the presence of Farage, who played it perfectly for the opening 48 hours.
Politicians, though, are weird, socially clumsy oddballs who crave approval and gossip, so Farage couldn’t help but blab to Grace that he wanted to do the trials because: “It’s 25 per cent of the airtime.”
On top of Nella’s behaviour, it’s the sort of cynical aside that could sour the entire series, not just the mood in the camp.
But this is where Ant and Dec come in and turn Farage’s neediness into a running joke by telling viewers: “The vote is now closed and we’ll be telling you who’s got 25 per cent of tomorrow’s airtime shortly.”
It’s the perfect way to lighten the load and has ensured I am, for now, smitten again with I’m A Celebrity and even able to answer Ant’s supplementary question at the Jungle Pizzeria: “Can you differentiate between the ar*es?”
Yes, there’s one massive one called Nella and 11 others.
ON Monday’s This Morning, the presenters and Gyles Brandreth were trying to work out what sort of gunk Josie Gibson had shoved her head in on I’m A Celeb’s first challenge, when up piped the Duchess of York.
“Gyles, what is that?”
Alison Hammond: “It’s kind of like an oily liquid.”
Yes, but forget Gyles, what is that?
IT’S not unfair to say that Sarah, Duchess of York, is to television presenting what Princess Michael of Kent is to Ultimate Fighting Championship, with one obvious difference.
No one is asking HRH to fight on Conor McGregor’s undercard, in Vegas.
Some maniac at ITV got the Duchess to co-present Monday’s This Morning, with predictably chaotic results.
Among the more obvious problems here is that Sarah cannot read the autocue without squinting like Claudia Winkleman in a sand blizzard, has a bit of an obsession with lingerie, and ad-libs so clumsily there are some images you’ll probably never be able to shift from your brain.
All things considered then, it was probably a mistake to let her loose on the relationship advice phone-in and some poor innocent called Claire, who was looking for advice on pepping up her 12-year-old marriage from the worst-qualified woman in the world.
The results were as stark as I’d feared.
One moment Sarah was packing her off for a romantic break in Snowdonia, with her husband, the next she was telling her: “You go climbing, then we can have a lovely weekend with saucy underwear on.”
Sarah, you even think about putting on saucy underwear, every husband in Britain will run for the hills.
And never come back.
I’m A Celeb, Sam Thompson: “MasterChef’s Grace Dent, you look absolutely beautiful.”
Mamma Mia: I Have A Dream, Zoe Ball: “It’s another gorgeous day in Greece.”
(It was).
And The One Show, Alex Jones: “Well, who doesn’t love Miriam Margolyes?”
I’m Spartacus . . .
ANY hope the next series of Doctor Who will be less preachy than the last couple was lost when Dalek creator Davros appeared, on a Children In Need sketch, upright, with two eyes, no scar and looking about as threatening as the Somerset Gimp during his downtime.
Why?
Well, according to returning show-runner Russell T Davies, the seated Davros “associated disability with evil, and trust me, there’s a very long tradition of this”.
Which there isn’t, obviously. It’s all just posturing, woke BBC bollocks and I’d imagine most people would struggle to think of a single example.
However, here’s a picture of Roger Lloyd Pack as John Lumic, in 2006 – during Russell’s previous show- running stint – where he appeared as the evil genius behind the Cybermen, in a wheelchair.
DAISY HAGGARD and Joanna Scanlan rising above the off-putting brutality and far-fetched plot of BBC1’s Boat Story.
Britain’s last proper Hollywood superstar, Joan Collins, burying BBC2’s Louis Theroux under an avalanche of dropped names, in St Tropez: “Frank Sinatra would’ve loved it here.”
Bill Bailey’s Australian Adventure, on Channel 4, proving to be the most relaxing show of the week.
But the best one was probably Sky Showcase’s David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, detailing the story of the funny, defiant and
indestructible stuntman who was paralysed on the Harry Potter set.
An inspirational and beautiful piece of television.
THE Great Climate Fight, Channel 4, Mary Portas: “The more I learn about how the Government treats the oil and gas sector, the more horrified I become.”
Maybe get out of the London cab you’re currently lecturing us from and bloody walk then.
JAMIE MACKIE: “There’s no right or wrong way to manage. But it has to be done right.”
Martin Keown: “At the death, it’s life or death.”
Paul Merson: “Once again, it’s six and a half and a dozen of the other.”
THE crushing discovery that Archie, ITV’s four-part tribute to a golden screen legend, wasn’t Macpherson.
The Masked Singer’s I’m A Celeb special failing to cast Janet Street-Porter as Bearded Dragon.
Channel 4 dressing up party political propaganda as environmental concern on The Great Climate Fight.
And Children In Need no longer existing just to help under- privileged kids.
Apparently some sly, over-reaching, woke parasites have now decreed it also involves “a commitment to racial equity and social justice”.
Please send your hard-earned money to less political and manipulative causes.
THE Weakest Link: EastEnders Special, Romesh Ranganathan: “According to the proverbial saying, a broth is spoiled if there are too many what?”
Lorraine “Karen” Stanley: “Lips.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Raquel, Cassandra and Trigger are characters in a 2019 West End musical based on which classic sitcom?”
Julia: “Friends.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Gilbert Jessop was one of the fastest run scorers ever in what sport?”
Jackie: “Marathon.”
THIS week’s winner is I’m A Celeb’s Nigel Farage and Ms Crawly from Sing.
Sent in by Daveyboy, via email.
