When did Love Island become more about fame than fun?
Love Island is back, which means a new squad of impeccably preened future spokespeople for the fast-fashion industry has entered TV’s most famous villa looking for love – and Instagram followers.
Once again, audiences have tuned in with the hope of becoming completely obsessed with the minutiae of the Islanders’ lives in the villa, only to forget most of their names once they leave. But according to overnight figures, Love Island lost 1 million viewers on its summer 2022 series. Even with the 300,000 that have since been added to incorporate catch-up, the overall figure was still a significant drop on 2022 and around half the number who watched 2019’s series launch.
My Twitter timeline bears this out. On Monday night, I was expecting it to be full of people hashtagging #LoveIsland and live-tweeting the show. There were some people bravely soldiering on, but there was a stark decrease from the days when the tweets about the show generated such intense fomo that I felt practically obligated to join in.
What is driving the slump in enthusiasm? For me, it’s the issue that befalls many reality TV shows: it has become primarily a vehicle for fame. We see this trend everywhere. Big Brother changed from “social experiment” to a tabloid cover competition. The X Factor and The Apprentice saw contestants angling more for celebrity (and an appearance on Celebrity Big Brother) than a genuine career in music or business. Even the once-humble Great British Bake Off has been changed by the sixfigure book deals awaiting its bakers, while RuPaul’s Drag Race has transformed from cult hit to mainstream staple, complete with stadium tours and conventions.
The show’s vibe has also shifted – even as the format has stayed broadly the same. In 2017, the reboot’s breakthrough series (won by Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies) turned the show into a cultural phenomenon. Back then, fans liked the absence of the toxic drunken conflicts that defined Big Brother. Instead, Love Island felt noticeably more supportive and even wholesome, capturing the weirdness of British romance and introducing a lexicon of terms such as “muggy” to the masses. It didn’t just bring together couples, it forged real friendships too. (The US and Australian versions didn’t take off in the same way because they failed to capture this sense of camaraderie.)
Gradually, though, the show has become more conflict-focused. Following accusations of toxicity and the deaths of former host Caroline Flack and several former contestants, ITV has made a point of updating and publishing its aftercare guidelines. But in 2021, the “movie night” – a twist where contestants are shown clips of things they’ve said about each other – resulted in Faye Winter lashing out in a brutal confrontation that prompted Ofcom complaints. And in 2022, Adam Collard – a contestant who four years previously had been accused of gaslighting and emotional abuse – was the first Islander to return to the villa, a move that seemed specifically designed to spark conflict.
In the face of a stagnant formula that is becoming less and less interesting to watch, the future of Love Island will depend on whether it can adapt. In 2021, I remember watching the premiere after an 18-month pandemic hiatus. Hearing that theme music again felt like a welcome return to normality, because we had been given a chance to feel the show’s absence. My main takeaway was “less is more”, so it was puzzling that ITV decided to air another winter series at the start of 2023. Why not stick to one series a year? Or use one of the two series to try something totally new, like an LGBTQ+ show, or an “all stars” series?
There are also questions about the casting. If you had asked ChatGPT to write a list of contestants for this year’s series, it would probably have come up with the same array of beauticians, personal trainers, models, estate agents and obligatory nepo baby of a B-list celebrity. Although there have been steps forward in terms of racial diversity and people living with disabilities, the show remains a place for people with sculpted bodies who feel like they must already run in the same circles.
Fans of new reality shows such as the BBC’s I Kissed a Boy and The Traitors should enjoy their innocence while it lasts, because once it’s gone, it’s nearon impossible to recapture. In the case of Love Island, it insults our intelligence to continue pretending that most of its cast are there for love, rather than social media followers and a coveted Boohoo endorsement deal. One thing the show could do – but hasn’t done enough – is acknowledge that reality. In the last two years there have been tentative breaks of the “fourth wall”, but ITV could be much bolder about this. If an acknowledgment of “the show” and the opportunities it can bring becomes a part of on-camera discussions and conflicts, then it will make Love Island far more interesting and authentic.
Louis Staples writes about the internet, culture and society
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awards when it originally premiered in the West End.
History was made with two actors becoming the first ever non-binary winners of acting Tonys. J Harrison Ghee was named best actor in a leading role in a musical for Some Like It Hot, paying tribute to their mother for telling them to use their talent “to be effective in the world, to help someone else’s journey”.
Alex Newell won best featured actor in a musical for their role in Shucked. “I have wanted this my entire life,” they said, before adding: “I should not be up here, as a queer non-binary fat Black little baby from Massachusetts.”
Jodie Comer followed her Olivier award win, by picking up the Tony for best actress in a leading role in a play for one-woman show Prima Facie. She plays a barrister dealing with sexual assault, a character she referred to as her “greatest teacher” in an emotive speech. She also spoke “to every person who feels represented by Tessa”. Comer won in a competitive category that included Jessica Chastain and Audra McDonald.
Earlier this week, Comer stopped a performance of the show as a result of New York City’s unhealthy air crisis. The actor said she couldn’t breathe, and was replaced by her understudy.
This year’s ceremony was almost cancelled as a result of the writers strike, but an agreement on 15 May meant that the night would not be picketed as long as it was unscripted.
Reports suggested that a script had already been written before the strike began, but after host Ariana DeBose opened the event with a wordless musical number, she explained that there wouldn’t be a script for the night. Teleprompters would only show a countdown for speeches that were overrunning.
“I think it’s time for Broadway to speak for herself,” DeBose said, keying up one of the night’s many musical performances. Later she made reference to her controversial Bafta rap by saying “Alex and J did the thing”, paying tribute to the two non-binary winners.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Writers Guild of America still asked nominated members not to attend. Lin-Manuel Miranda had been recruited to write a song for the evening but stopped writing as a result of the strike.
Kimberly Akimbo, about a teenage girl with a condition that causes her to age rapidly, was named best musical, with its star Victoria Clark named best lead actress. “We are nothing without our writers,” Clark said, in reference to the strike. Pulitzer prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire won for best book of a musical. “Tomorrow we’re going to be on the picket lines,” he said in his speech, adding, “we just want to be treated fairly”. Bonnie Milligan was also named best featured actress in a musical for the show.
Suzan-Lori Parks won best revival of a play for her Pulitzer prize-winning drama Topdog/Underdog. “Look at what the spirit can do,” she said in her speech. “This means a whole lot to a whole lot of people.” She went on to call theatre “the great cure”. The play originated in 2001 and was nominated for best play in 2002.
Sean Hayes was named best actor in a leading role for a play for Good Night, Oscar, winning in a tough category against Corey Hawkins and Wendell Pierce.
Parade, which tells the true story of the lynching of a falsely accused Jewish man in 1913, won for best revival of a musical. In 1998, Parade picked up two Tony awards for its first Broadway run.
Michael Arden also won for best direction of a musical for Parade. “We must come together, we must battle this; it’s so, so important, or we are doomed to repeat the horrors of our history,” he said, of the play’s continued relevance among ongoing bigotries. He recalled being targeted as a gay youth before calling himself “a faggot with a Tony”, a moment that was bleeped out by CBS.
Miriam Silverman won best featured actress in a play, for The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. She also showed support for the WGA, saying “my parents raised me to believe in the power of labor”.
For the first time, the event was held at the United Palace, a former Washington Heights cinema in New York City.
culum can be a starting point for them. This is not only freeing but energising too – an invitation to create new conversations and broaden the range of voices to which successive generations are exposed. We want education, as an institution, to be able to speak to the present and grow confidently into an unknowable future instead of being shackled to a familiar past. This is how to do it.
• I Heard What You Said: A
Black Teacher, a White System by Jeffrey Boakye is available in paperback (Picador, £10.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
The Great White Bard: Shakespeare, Race and the Future by Farah KarimCooper (Oneworld, £22)
This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelves in 50 Books by Joan AnimAddo, Deirdre Osborne and Kadija Sesay George (Quercus, £10.99)
Diverse Educators: A Manifesto by Hannah Wilson and Bennie Kara (editors), Hannah Wilson (Legend, £24.99)
a higher power and, to satirise the silliness of religion, they chose the Norse gods, so their shared joke is the blue makeup and Viking helmets.
I have to say that their “Valhalla” ending is unconvincing in a real-world context of what you actually can and can’t do to bring about assisted death without finding yourself in court, and it leaves the whole film on a kids-TV level of plausibility. But Ward, Carney and Beattie give sincere performances.
• Sunlight is released on 16 June in UK and Irish cinemas.