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I keep reading that conventional telly is dying on its backside. Watching Celebrity Big Brother, I realise not only is that true but it’s actually in the process of being buried alive, channel by channel, sleb by sleb, viewer by viewer. The reality show has been revived after six years in cryogenic storage, and rather unsuccessfully. The “Live Launch” feels like it’s still got a touch of rigour mortis about it. The “celebs” in question, mostly not even household names in their own kitchen, do their best to look exhilarated and ever so “excited” – that word crops up a lot – but all too often look like Frankenstein’s monster rising from the slab when they try to prove it.
Like the parent Big Brother itself, CBB has moved over from Channel 4, where it sort of fit in as an innovation, to mainstream ITV, where it somehow feels like it doesn’t belong. I fear this is going to be an unsuccessful organ transplant, rejected by both host and audience.
In fairness to ITV, they’ve thrown all their creative energy into this moribund format, which, unfortunately, means that they’ve rather lazily plundered two reliable stars and part of the structure from another of their own shows. Louis Walsh and Sharon Osborne have been enlisted to “judge” the other CBB housemates, watching them from a separate boudoir, as if they were on a voyeuristic version of The X Factor. Not content with that feeble attempt at novelty, they’ve also turned Louis and Sharon into secret housemate “spies” – as on the BBC hit game show Traitors. Or something like that – disgracefully it’s not thought through. They’re asked, on no more than a few minutes of exposure to the housemates, most of whom they don’t recognise, which contestants they want to put into the “ring of fire” for the public vote. It’s all a bit illogical; everyone is trying just a bit too hard; and it’s a mess.
The Big Brother house itself, carried over from the original series, has been reno’d quite opulently, if garishly, and seems less claustrophobic than the original, which may not be a good thing – close proximity being much more conducive to celebrity friction. The presenters, AJ Odudu and Will Best, are nice enough, but not yet in the Davina McCall class. AJ seems like a laugh, and if her crimson catsuit isn’t some sort of tribute to George Galloway’s classic cat routine with Rula Lenska, then it ought to have been. Of course, George, by freaky coincidence, is re-entering a different House, the House of Commons, where he seems likely to be voted out at the earliest opportunity. Catsuit or not.
And the celebs? Mostly they don’t seem that compelling, with the outstanding exception of a chap named David Potts, who is like a youthful Christopher Biggins, but a bit less reserved. Potts turned up in a dinner jacket teamed with his budgie smugglers, and I must say looked very much as if he’d shaved his legs. When he jiggled up and down at the joy of meeting sauce tycoon Levi Roots, Potts’ “fruit and veg were hanging down at the front”, as Sharon notes, barely lifting an eyebrow. Well, she’s seen an awful lot in her day, hasn’t she?
After his genital gaffe, the judges took an instant dislike to Potts, which actually may end up being the making of him (though he should really get a pair of jockey shorts if he’s going to make a habit of gouging around without his trousers on). Short on any searing insights, Sharon and Louis also formed the view that dancer Nikita Kuzmin is “pretty”; ex-Love Island winner Ekin-Su Cücülogu is “on everything”; Fern Britton is “a pro”; Marisha Wallace is a “Broadway and West End” singer; and Colson Smith has “big ears” – succinct observations but without much in the way of value added.
They have little idea who Gary Goldsmith is, but he very much does. He grandly introduces himself as “uncle to the next Queen of England”, and indeed he is. No doubt Goldsmith is there to give us some gossip about the royals, but all he’ll say so far about Kate is that she might be watching the show “on a nice sofa in a nice house…or behind the sofa”. I don’t think watching Uncle Gary on CBB will be a very effective way for HRH to convalesce from her abdominal surgery. It’s certainly not doing ITV or the rest of us much good.