The cruelty on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here started off like a Japanese game show. It has become like a Japanese concentration camp.
Shit inspecting demon |
At the beginning, eating bugs used to be a rarity; an uber-trial late on in the programme which separated the men from the boys, then made them all eat mashed up cockroaches anyway. Now in its ninth year, eating bugs has become something the celebrities have to do just for the authorisation to take a shit.
This weekend, (Saturday and Sunday, 9pm, ITV1) a vast woman called Alison from Birmingham and a Playboy bimbo with a voice so grating she makes you want to dip your ears in a food blender, had to keep live insects the size of Hugh Hefner in their mouths for twenty seconds, while two Geordies who used to be PJ and Duncan shouted numbers from the sidelines. Had he still been alive, Commander Tatsuji Suga of the Batu Lintang POW camp would have been taking notes. And wanking like teenager.
But IACGMOOH nevertheless remains the most compelling of reality shows. Perhaps it is because you know it will only last three weeks. Perhaps it is because once you have abandoned every concept of human decency and bought into the spiteful voyeurism, you may as well enjoy it. Most of all it is because Ant, Dec et al have completely nailed the concept. Voting to keep a person in, rather than voting to kick them out, guarantees the monsters remain and the dullards go. Gillian McKeith – a woman described by Jenny Eclaire as “a ghastly creature. Ghastly!” and Shaun Ryder as “an ‘orrible, nasty fucker,” remains. “Lovely rock,” Cheryl Gascoigne (a woman so nice that had she been chief of Northumbria police, would have let erstwhile husband, Paul, have a crack at talking down Raoul Moat with a fishing rod and six beers that time) was the first to go.
Lembit (Limp Bizkit) Opik, Alison Vast, and Britt Eckland have all followed.
So as we go into the final week, here are the Television Review odds on the probably victor:
Gillian McKeith: So poisonous she teaches wickedness classes to Mephistopheles and his evil hoards, and on Saturday night, forced Ryder into such a state of tautological incandescence that he screamed at her, “not only are you full of bullshit, you’re a lying bullshitter.” Could cast a spell to force a victory.
150-1
Aggro Santos: Tremendously tedious. But with the idiot charm of a simpleton. “Do I look like a Korean?” asked fat Caucasian, Dom Joly on Sunday night. “I don’t know man,” replied Santos.
90-1
Kayla Playboy: Voice like a corkscrew drilling into your brain. But showed some mettle. And some cleavage. Unlikely victor still.
30-1
Dom Joly: funny favourite. Masterful liar, and unapologetic bastard.
Evens
Stacey X-Factor: Unpretentious, surprisingly sharp, big-chested, supposed dim-wit. Joint favourite
Evens
Shaun Ryder: Innate decency, and charming bumbling of a cleaned up drug-nut, could see him walk out in the crown. Might end up killing McKeith, though, and see him dragged out in a police van.
2-1
20-1
Jenny Eclair: Good value comedienne. Could do quite well. But not as funny as Dom, or nice looking as Stacey.
12-1