Never mind The Full Monty, this was turning into Up Pompeii!

Dr Sigmund Freud never gyrated on a stage in front of hundreds of whooping women before whipping off his thong. But the psychologist of sex wrote whole books that explain exactly what must have been going through the mind of quiz show host Alexander Armstrong as he tackled stripping on The Real Full Monty (iTV).

Xander was raiding the address book on his phone, desperately recruiting fellow male celebrities to help him recreate the famous full-frontal striptease routine from the 1997 movie, to raise cancer awareness.

Of his 600 closest friends, fewer than half a dozen signed up. ‘i’ve only got a very tiny handful,’ the presenter gulped. Ah yes, dr Freud knows what Xander is fretting about.

And after a warm-up dance routine in the bread aisle at Asda, one of the celebs gasped, ‘i’m not sure if i can look at a baguette the same way ever again.’ never mind The Full monty, this was turning into up Pompeii!

For most of the men, the embarrassment wasn’t so much about flashing their bits but the horror of having to dance in public. That didn’t bother ex-ballet star Wayne Sleep, though he proved surprisingly coy about taking his shirt off.

As for Xander, he had the air of a man who suffered much worse indignities at public school. And he dances exactly like a game show host — do they go to special Brucie College to learn the moves?

red dwarf’s danny John-Jules and matthew Wolfenden from Emmerdale proved smashing little movers, but it was that TV scourge of cowboy builders, dom Littlewood, who really enjoyed himself. He tore off his clothes like a man who’d been waiting for this all his life.

Almost all the volunteers had suffered prostate cancer or had seen a love one stricken with the disease. it seems no bloke wants to think about it till he has to... even if a check-up could save his life.

The most moving moment came when TOWIE’s Elliott Wright sat down with his dad Eddie, who has inoperable cancer, in a cafe over a plate of pie and mash.

‘i know why you’re doing this,’ Eddie told his son. ‘You’re doing it for me, and i can’t thank you enough.’

This show packed in emotion, gags and some hilarious choreography, and did it all for a good cause. inexplicably, it ruined its own surprise, by having the lads do a dress rehearsal starkers in front of a crowd of delighted ladies at a Sheffield club. But the live finale at the London Palladium was still quite a triumph.

Emotion and gags were completely absent from screenwriter neil Jordan’s opulent new crime thriller Riviera (Sky Atlantic).

Set in the South of France against a backdrop of superyachts and mega-villas, every shot seemed to drip with money — so it’s appropriate that if you want to watch it, you’ll have to shell out extra for the premium subscription channel. But the glitz and glamour are fake.

This is diamante and gold flake, not gemstones and ingots. none of the characters strikes a spark of sympathy in us — certainly not Julia Stiles as georgina, the young widow of a creepy billionaire who was incinerated in a boat explosion.

Her pout is so sulky, she looks like the plastic surgeon did her facelift upside-down.

iwan rheon is no more likeable as a heartless playboy. The shallowness is made worse by high-speed editing — some scenes last just a few seconds.

All very tacky... it’s enough to make you glad you’re not a billionaire.