Love Island meets Strictly — it’s the Beeb’s idea for today’s yoof
On the top floor at Broadcasting house, the Beeb’s Youth Committee is in session. Victor Meldrew is there, and Albert Steptoe, and Del Boy’s Grandad.
It is Young Mr Grace himself who takes charge: ‘the “kids” of today are viewing on their Portable telephones. they’re all about tocktick and InstantGran. Gentlemen, we must give them the entertainment they demand.’
the result is a dating show called I Like the Way U Move (BBC1). We can tell how trendy this is because it spells ‘You’ with a U— bang upto-date, ever since 1997.
the format mixes Love Island with Strictly Come Dancing and sends it back in a time warp to the noughties and the early days of Big Brother. Surely, the kids will be kaptivated.
Five professional dancers pick out five amateurs from a crowded party, choosing the ones they fancy most, and they all go off to live in a house full of cameras while they practise their choreography.
each couple performs a steamy routine for the judges, and the pair with least ‘chemistry’ is eliminated. this carries on until one duo is left, winning every Young Person’s dream prize — a holiday in Ibiza.
If this is what the BBC has to offer the next generation, all unde r30s ought to be exempted from the licence fee. It’s only fair.
Apart from a few rehearsed moves, there was practically no dancing in the opening episode.
All the emphasis was on the faux romances, which seemed heavily scripted. Long-haired Jaydon was attracted to shy Amy, chiefly because her tresses matched his.
Sulky Lee also wanted to dance with Amy but missed his chance, so he invited Geordie Francesca instead.
then Lee sat Fran down and, in an anguished heart-to-heart, confessed he didn’t much like her. Amy was his soulmate.
Francesca was devastated but held on to her dignity, and even thanked Lee for his ‘honesty’.
We left her being comforted by her Gay Best Friend, Akshay. they’d known each other all of 90 minutes.
everyone wore microphones at all times, even in bed, and you could sense the scurry of junior producers just out of shot, prompting the action.
My guess is that Francesca and Lee will discover a latent attraction that thrills the judges. I won’t be watching, though. I’m much too old.
Dancer Ashley Banjo was coming to terms with a different sort of heartbreak, on Britain In Black And White (ItV). Last year, on Britain’s Got talent, he and his troupe, Diversity, performed a routine in honour of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, with Ashley being cuffed and roughed up by a thuggish policeman. to his bewilderment, not everyone loved it.
Ashley’s vanity is off-putting. he paraded his trophies and favourite publicity pictures then challenged critic Dominique Samuels to a debate. She had strong reservations about seeing BGt used for political statements, but conceded that she would not have banned the broadcast. Crowing and whooping, Ashley claimed that as an outright win.
In his Fidel Castro t-shirt, he made little attempt to address concerns about extremist aspects of Black Lives Matter. It’s difficult to discuss anticapitalism through the medium of dance, after all.
Like Pan’s People or hot Gossip in the 1970s, Diversity are in the best tradition of telly dance spectacles.
But that doesn’t make Ashley a political figurehead.
I wouldn’t want hot Gossip telling me how to vote either.