It’s summer – so it’s time to meet the Islanders we love to hate
ek it’s almost time! Unless you live in a box, you can’t fail to have noticed that it must be summer because the new
starts
Eseries of tonight.
That’s my 9pm weekdays sorted for the next howevermany weeks as the next crop of uber-tanned influencer wannabes parade around the villa in their undies trying to win the £50k prize.
Yes, there is a prize, it’s not just about drumming up followers so they can grab the most lucrative deal the second they step on that plane back to Blighty.
Will they find love? Unlikely. Will they achieve notoriety? If they last long enough. We’ve already had one of this year’s contestants issuing a grovelling apology for something he tweeted in the dim and distant past.
Surely that’s cheating? We see you, George, and you’re a bad boy. We’ll be watching you.
Surely the fact he describes himself as a business development executive should set more bells ringing than the fact an ex-girlfriend was less than impressed with his behaviour.
What’s one of those? What do they produce? How does their typical day go, do they switch on their laptop at 9am on a Monday and executively develop someone else’s business? Beats me.
It’s a bit like on the
when they earnestly tell Lord Sugar they’re a supersavvy, optimistic entrepreneur. Yes, but what do you actually DO? At least you knew where you were with the bloke who used to set off cannons.
There was great excitement, however, when teenage son spotted one of the 2022 rejects while shopping in Manchester recently and even more when I thought I’d seen Gemma Owen at a horse show (thankfully without her dreadful exfishmonger in tow).
Anyhow, the countdown is on to meet this year’s bunch of bang average footballers, beauticians and social media content creators ready to battle it out in their swimwear for that cash prize. Oops, sorry, I mean find love.
And despite the fact that we do nothing but take the mickey out of them, we’ll be watching until the bitter end.
However, is not the only new series that’s started recently.
That most genteel of murder mysteries
has also begun. For a sleepy, middle class little town, Midsomer doesn’t half have more than its fair share of residents being unceremoniously bumped off.
It must be great to be a journalist on the local paper there. No page one story? Give it a couple of hours, some lord or other is bound to be impaled on something unpleasant or fall to their death from the top of an awfully posh manor house. Perhaps they’ll choke on the chintz… regardless, that awfully nice inspector and whichever sidekick it is this series will be there to make sure the baddie is banged to rights.
Last week’s episode even involved a Gilbert and Sullivan performance; it doesn’t get much more middle class than that.
That said, it’s definitely got its fans. My mother watches daytime reruns avidly. Even though there’s blood, guts and gore, there’s also picturesque villages, thatched roofs and bicycles with baskets on the front.
You can’t argue with a formula when the show is on series 20-something, no matter how much you still expect John
Nettles to show up in his navy Rover to save the day.
Another new show – well, new to me anyhow – is a series of
I’ve been watching on Dave. It’s not the latest one but it doesn’t matter because this form of celebrity clowning around is timeless.
And the guests are actual celebrities, not just random former Apprentices or Love Islanders. Jo Brand and David Baddiel are on it, after all, as well as Ed Gamble, Katy Wix (complete with hi-viz safety gear) and Rose Matafeo.
There’s the usual mixture of hilariously idiotic challenges including hide three aubergines, identify which bin Alex is in, score a goal while riding a digger and make a lovely ball arrangement. The aim is for the famous five to win back their forfeited possessions, with challenges presented to them by taskmaster Greg Davies.
Davies himself is a man of many talents – not only is he famous for being very tall (6ft 8ins), he’s an award-winning actor and comedian who’s been in everything from
to
Now there is a genuinely big star.