Inane and thick as mince — and that’s just this gameshow’s host
Blame Kate Bush. Thanks to her 1980 hit Babooshka, about a jealous wife who disguises herself as a moscow dolly bird to entrap her philandering hubby, we all get this Russian word wrong.
Babushka doesn’t mean ‘young woman’ — it’s ‘grandmother’. But the ten giant Russian dolls on stage in Rylan Clark-Neal’s new gameshow Babushka (ITV) have beauty spots and glamorous make-up, not headscarfs and wrinkles.
The quiz, a summer stand-in for ratings favourite The Chase, is little more than a revamp of Noel edmonds’s Deal Or No Deal.
each doll might contain a series of smaller dolls worth anything from £500 to £10,000, or they might be empty. The players must guess.
a much better name would be Doll Or No Doll. Don’t try explaining this to Rylan, though, because the former Celebrity Big Brother contestant won’t understand. He’s thick as mince and looked terrified through most of the first episode.
The only moment he seemed comfortable came when the quizzers Debbie and martin asked him to walk across the stage, impersonating the Chancellor of the exchequer on Budget Day, as they tried to decide whether the head of the Treasury lives at No9 Downing Street or No 11. Rylan threw himself into catwalk poses, blowing kisses at the cameras.
Funny, I don’t remember George Osborne or Philip Hammond waving their briefcases about like that. and it didn’t help Debbie and martin — they picked the wrong answer and said: ‘No 9.’
many fans of The Chase were worried at the news Rylan would be taking over the time slot usually filled by presenter Bradley Walsh and his challenging general knowledge quiz.
Their fears were well-founded. The puzzlers on this show were child’s play or completely unguessable. They included bizarre posers such as: ‘a Twirl is one of the chocolates found in a box of Celebrations — true or false?’
With his gleaming teeth like varnished chips of marble, Rylan couldn’t even say the word. ‘Chwirl,’ he kept mumbling, before spinning round on his heel.
every time the players got an answer wrong or picked an empty doll, they lost everything they’d earned so far. Their only hope of a prize rested on the final question, and even then Rylan wanted them to take a double-or-nothing gamble. It would have made more sense to flip a coin.
Dolls were the theme, too, on Britain’s Biggest Hoarders (C4), where Sue Richardson’s collection of 100 grotesque plastic babies and mannequins had taken over the house she shared with husband Neil — along with seven dogs, four cats, two parrots and enough clutter to stock ten charity shops.
even the stairs were piled high with junk.
Poor old Neil tried not to moan, possibly because his missus had a volcanic temper — during one row, she wrenched the lounge door off its hinges and smashed the TV. Best not to antagonise a lass like that. But at one low point, he did confide to the cameras: ‘my personal life at the moment is rock bottom. I hate all of it.’
This series would be a freak show if it weren’t for the full co-operation of the subjects.
Sue, Neil and the couple in a second case study — amateur inventor Scott and wife Faith — demonstrated real bravery in letting the cameras into their overflowing homes.
Hoarding is almost always a symptom of much deeper mental illness. It’s commonplace but, because it happens behind closed doors, it’s a well-kept secret. Dig down, and there were valuable lessons and advice concealed in this programme.