Telly Vision: Celebrity Juice and Would I Lie To You?
In a week where I struggled to find much of anything on TV, I thought I’d switch gear from sitcoms to panel shows for once…
Celebrity Juice (ITV, Thursdays)
In the spirit of full disclosure: I actively dislike Celebrity Juice. I’m not even sure why I’m reviewing it; watching Celebrity Juice makes me feel dirty in all the wrong ways. It is like comedic torture.
For those blissfully unaware of Celebrity Juice, it is a ‘celebrity entertainment’ panel show. Keith Lemon (Leigh Francis) is your host: a tanned, bleached, ginger-moustached Yorkshireman. His team captains are attractive, large breasted blonde Holly Willoughby and attractive, large-breasted brunette Kelly Brook. Guests this week include Connor Maynard (yeah, I’d never heard of him either), Richard Madley, Johnny Vegas and Dermot O’Leary. The show is made up of a series of challenges and games, and the winning team of each game wins some points.
I can’t say much positive about it, other than Johnny Vegas was pretty good. But it’s not hard for someone genuinely funny to stand out in this sort of setup. I would imagine the show’s main target demographic is the sort of person who thinks that changing someone’s Facebook status to “I’m gay” is the height of comedy (Ha ha ha – isn’t human sexuality hilarious…). How it has quite so many fans just completely baffles me. Maybe the average person relates to jokes about boobies, muffs and wank jokes. Is this what it has come to?
Would I Lie To You? (BBC1, Fridays)
Would I Lie To You? is a BBC One panel show originally hosted by Angus Deayton and now hosted by Rob Brydon. The point of the show is to lie to or fool your opposing team into believing what you are telling them is the truth. Successfully deceive your opposition and get some points. Simple, yet affective. Joining Rob Brydon as regular Team Captains are the wonderful David Mitchel and Lee Mack. Guests on this episode are Jason Manford, Paul Hollywood, Warwick Davis and Joan Bakewell.
This, as a celebrity panel show, couldn’t really be much different from Celebrity Juice if it tried; WILTY is about quick thinking and wit. 5 minutes in and I haven’t heard a single muff joke. It’s a great show and one I don’t watch as much as I probably should. It is entertaining, likeable and unique. The players are all pitch perfect; great chemistry and natural comedians. There is lots of great comedy which manifests itself organically within the show.
This week I am mostly looking forward to Up The Women on BBC4, a sitcom set during the suffragette movement of the early 20th century. It has a great cast and is a setting which hasn’t been explored before (to my knowledge).
