Gigglebox Weekly #36 – Harry Hill’s TV Burp

Gigglebox Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week I’ve been reviewing what I’m hoping will be the final series of Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

When I say “hoping will be the final series”, what I really mean is that I hope if Harry Hill leaves this’ll be the final series of TV Burp. Recent reports suggest Hill may be moving to Channel 4 after this series, possibly for both a sketch show and a film, while ITV1 is making a new prime-time show starring Dom Joly that may well replace TV Burp.

So, if Hill does move away from ITV1, I hope the ITV executives have the good sense to stop TV Burp there and then rather than get someone else to host it, because we all know a new host won’t bring the same style, humour and fun that Hill does. It would cheapen his brilliant work.

But for now, TV Burp is still with us, for its 12th and most likely final series. As Hill himself said at the very start of the show: “I’m still here.” In terms of the shows profiled, there was less from the soaps than normal; the only real contributions they made being an Emmerdale “flasher”, a grumpy BBC1 continuity announcer introducing Doctors and someone leaving EastEnders for the “terrifyingly” distant land that is Cardiff.

However, there were plenty of other programmes for Hill to cover. Highlights include a muscularly horse thanks to a bodybuilding Jodie Marsh, double entendre galore from The Fabulous Baker Brothers, and Hill discovering the dangerous truth about the slow loris, the world’s only venomous primate (complete with two tongues and camera trickery).

When Harry Hill’s TV Burp goes, it will be sorely missed.