I’d be Cilla’s ideal match for Blind Date, says host Paul WE’LL HAVE A LORRA LAUGHS
Visitor’s hunting for the bear necessities
A NIGHT time visitor creeps into a quiet town hunting for a midnight snack.
The animal was snapped in Baile Tusnad in Transylvania, Romania, checking a waste dump for a meal.
At one point it even climbed into a bin looking for a bite to eat – and moments later emerged with a large piece of food in its mouth.
Amused locals looked on as the bear sauntered across a road afterwards, seemingly unfazed by their presence.
And it had a brief face-off with a dog before they continued on their respective journeys. Just like urban foxes in Britain, Transylvanian bears have increasingly come into contact with humans as our settlements encroach on their natural habitats. PAUL O’Grady is confident he would have Cilla Black’s blessing as the host of a revived Blind Date.
The comic has promised viewers the dating show will have the fun factor, just like it did years ago.
He said: “We’ll have the wall trundling out and I’ll say, ‘Let’s meet tonight’s picker’. Basically, the show is the same.”
Cilla made Blind Date one of the most popular TV shows of all time when she hosted it for 18 years until 2003.
Paul was close pals with the TV legend, who passed away two years ago.
He said: “She wouldn’t have been giving me any advice. She’d have said, ‘Get on with it’. Cilla wouldn’t dream of telling me what to do because she’d appreciate that, as a new person going in there, you have to put your own stamp on it. But she’d be very encouraging too.
“She’d say, ‘You’ll be great at it, just go out and do it’.”
Blind Date will be back next weekend for the first time in 14 years in its new home on Channel 5.
When Paul was first approached by producers he snubbed them.
He said: “I spoke to a few people who said Cilla would love me to do it. I was the only one she’d want to do it. So that was it then, I thought, ‘Oh, go on then’.”
The new series, which kicks off on Saturday, has already been filmed.
Paul added: “When I heard the music and I’m stood backstage and they go, ‘Your host for Blind Date…’, I thought, ‘This is very odd, how has this happened?’
“I half-expected Cilla to appear and say, ‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’ because it’s just so reminiscent of her and it didn’t feel right at first. But once it settled down, it did.”
Channel 5 bosses will air Blind Date against ITV singing contest The Voice Kids and new BBC show Pitch Battle.
Paul is anxious that reviving a muchloved show isn’t always a success.
He said: “It’s like Top Gear – when that JIMMY McCLOSKEY ED GLEAVE TV Editor came out, they all went for it tooth and nail. It might die on its behind, people might say it’s too dated, or whatever. But I don’t think so. And as long as the punters like it, I’m really not bothered.”
Paul reckons Britain’s singletons will be perfect for the show and he has called on bosses not to commission a celeb version.
He said: “There’s enough bloody celebrities and it’s all the same lot they truck out – the desperados who’ll do anything. I’m sorry, no, no, no.” And Paul wants the show to be aimed at a family audience.
He added: “I’d hate them to mess about with it and I’d hate them to go too far and have nudity and it be all about sex, because that’s not what Blind Date was about.”
Mel Sykes is taking over from Graham Skidmore who famously did the voiceover as ‘Our Graham’.
Paul said: “She’s a pro, Mel, she’s a lovely girl. She’s in her element as the new Graham.”