‘I’m a Celebrity’ in Wales is just a little bit too close to home

For the want of anything more improving to do I’ve been tuning into I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! every evening. I had hoped to bond with the children over it but the celebrities drew a blank – apart from the marvellous Sir Mo Farah, who is sweet, but whose feet are considerably quicker than his wits.

Aside from him, there’s Shane Richie, who is so relentlessly upbeat he’s bound to break down and cry at some point, and I’ve got no idea why that Radio 1 DJ took part as he appears constitutionally ill-suited to everything that’s asked of him.

So I’m left there on my own, worrying about everyone’s mental health, as a load of hunched people I’ve sort of heard of dismally shiver in the Welsh cold when they ought to be sweltering in the Australian heat.

Yes, the countryside was breathtakingly beautiful in the opening shots but this lot are camping in Gwrych Castle in November. The setting is grey, they are grey; I feel there-but-for-thegrace grey watching them.

Even within the hermetically-sealed reality show format, there’s no underlying logic to them eating eyeballs or dancing the Macarena wearing plastic pantaloons filled with cockroaches – in North Wales.

Not that there were compelling cultural reasons for previous contestants to drink maggots in New South Wales, but it just seemed to make more sense because – well, it just did.

This season is already dragging. Much as I ought to enjoy seeing TV personalities put through the wringer, I’m getting too many flashbacks of miserable British breaks to feel anything but uncomfortable empathy.

If anything, the Bushtucker trials (again, in Wales?) should be axed in favour of pinch-me-i’m-dreaming treats being randomly handed out – heated blankets, cup-a-soups, sheepskin-lined onesies – then summarily taken away and given to someone else.

It would be heartwarming, heartbreaking – and Shane Richie would definitely break down.