Why does Holly Willoughby dress as Where’s Wally on new BBC show?
IF there’s one thing more exciting than discovering a character you really love, on television, it’s the buzz of discovering a character you really don’t like at all.
A character, for instance, like Owain Wyn Evans, the drumming Welsh weatherman who, like Jim Royle’s “s**t on a field,” is suddenly everywhere, craving our attention with a desperation not even Fred Sirieix or Dr Ranj can match.
Mostly, this week, Owain was doing it on Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof, an ITV show that has somehow ended up on BBC1, where it’s hosted, in northern Italy, by the unlikely combination of Holly Willoughby and Lee Mack, who had both come in fancy dress
She was in “Where’s Wally?” clobber.
He was dressed as Brian Harvey in East 17’s Stay Another Day video, to emphasise the cold.
An effect Lee rather ruined by taking his coat off halfway through FTF
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The star of the show, though, was always meant to be Dutchman Wim, who’s one of those Uri Geller figures that crop up every decade or so, offering you an unlikely cure to life’s problems that will short-cut all the tough bits, like working hard and not being a tw*t.
Uri lets you take control of your mind by bending spoons.
Wim does it by “harnessing the power of the cold,” dressing like a member of the Grateful Dead and spouting the sort of psychobabble that carries about as much medical significance and intellectual gravity as the next Gary Barlow album.
If his plums weren’t already shrivelled enough, Wim also occasionally performs his own b*****k-crushing version of the splits, just for added emphasis and showmanship.
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What I like about him, though, is that he’s persuaded gullible fools the world over to make perfect exhibitions of themselves by jumping into ice-cold water then pronouncing themselves magically transformed.
Here, in the sublime setting of the Alps, the BBC had assembled eight more of them, who seemed to be the ghosts of Strictly past, present and future.
As well as Owain, we had: Dancer Dianne Buswell, Professor Green, Chelcee Grimes, Tamzin Outhwaite, Gabby Logan, Patrice Evra, in full Swiss Toni mode, and a freshly divorced and deeply repentant Alfie Boe, who arrived buffed-up and boasting his own anagram: “OBE.”
No fat celebrities, you’ll notice, due either to the limitations of the BBC’s insurance premiums or Wim’s method, which required them to jump through an ice hole into a freezing lake and then dutifully agree as someone, usually Holly, assured them: “Wim gave you the strength.”
This task they all managed, with a reasonable lack of fuss.
Except, of course, for Owain, who could not do it without tearfully sharing his inner turmoil, the cruel (standard) setbacks of childhood that forced him into the limelight and a theatrical pause before he launched himself to a burst of Emeli Sande: “Some people are scared of heights, some are scared of cold, I’m just . . .”
Scared of not being famous. Now there’s a good lad. JUMP
Eventually, Wim “gave him the strength” and he did — and though the temptation must have been to leave Owain down there, they fished him out and something almost as unwelcome then happened. Wim vanished.
Wim vanished. I’ve no idea where, but he was definitely Hofski — and Freeze The Fear literally fell off a cliff.
Back in the Eighties, when a show ran out of ideas, it would resort to gungeing people. Now, they send them abseiling.
The crucial difference being, you stood far more chance of getting killed on a Noel Edmonds show than abseiling because, if one of them had landed on their head, I promise you, news of Alfie Boe’s tragic death would’ve filtered out and the show would never have been aired.
They had to go through the full pretence, obviously.
But even with all the production trickery and faux drama in the world, there was still another 15 minutes of the show to fill once this “facing your fears” filler was over and nothing for the celebs to do except trudge back to their accommodation.
I say “accommodation.”
It’s actually luxury Alpine yurts that were filled with acoustic guitars, champagne and pretty soon afterwards, the sound of the last thing viewers probably need to hear during a cost- of-living/energy crisis: Comparatively rich celebrities having the time of their lives.
As bad optics go, it’s not quite up there with Boris doing a conga round No10, but the thing about celebrities having fun onscreen is that it always means the viewers are having none off-screen.
And I wouldn’t mind so much if, after running out of things to do within 30 minutes, there was only one episode of this BS.
But, turns out, Freeze The Fear is a SIX-part series and I am now duty bound to watch every single one of them.
Wim Hof. Give me bloody strength.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
LIGHTNING, Zoe Lyons: “The Chancellor of Germany, from 1969 to 1974, was called Willy . . . ?”
Josh: “Thorne.”
Zoe Lyons: “Which popular card game shares its name with the Spanish word for number one?”
Josh: “Cribbage.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which UK prime minister starred in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons?”
Mikayla: “Winston Churchill.”
Celebrity Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “Which distant planet was discovered in 1846 and orbits the sun only once every 165 years?”
Sonny Jay: “The moon.”
Rudy no match for Ant
FOR all those people worried Keanu Reeves has joined the cast of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, relax. He hasn’t.
That’s all-American hero Rudy Reyes, a former Marine sniper who was one of the most mesmerising interviewees on BBC2’s landmark 2020 series Once Upon A Time In Iraq and would make a great WWE SmackDown host.
Dropping him into the Jordanian desert, though, to replace Ant Middleton as Chief Instructor, isn’t on a par with getting Al Pacino to play Captain Mainwaring, in Dad’s Army, but you get the point.
It doesn’t work, no matter how often the rest of the cast and voiceover remind us of Britain and America’s “special relationship”.
The curse of central casting, of course, has long since ruined the roster of contestants, who don’t get anywhere near the camera now unless they’ve been chosen to reinforce a woke point or are armed to the teeth with sob stories.
Long-suffering viewers aside, the people I feel really sorry for here are the two remaining deadpan British SF staff, Jason “Foxy” Fox and Mark “Billy” Billingham, who still have the power to stem the endless flow of self-pity with a heartfelt insult (“absolute f***tard”) or just a despairing shout of “GUARD!”
No sooner had Billy finally got “energetic” Claire to put a sock in it, on Sunday night, though, than Rudy had sidled up to her, whispering: “I think you’re doing great” – and I’d reluctantly come to the same conclusion most of you reached a couple of series ago.
Show’s over.
Random TV irritations
ALL those woke martyrs trading off the lie that: “There was no one who looked like me on telly when I was young.”
Reporter Justin Rowlatt wearing jeans to the BBC 6 O’clock News studio, like he’d just been called in from recomposting his allotment.
The Great Sex Experiment signing off with a deeply inappropriate burst of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy.
Whichever overpaid ITV imbecile was responsible for changing the Tipping Point format.
And BBC1’s Have I Got News For You failing to aim a single joke or barb in Putin’s direction because the London bubble tosspots were too busy directing their real middle-class hatred at all the usual targets and Wetherspoon pubs.
So bloody brave of them.
Great sporting insights
MARK WARBURTON: “At the moment, we don’t know. But when we know, I’m sure we will know.”
Paul Merson: “Maguire is dependable until he isn’t.”
Neil Warnock: “I can’t pick out an outstanding game, but Sheffield United v Forest was special.”
Compiled by Graham Wray.
TV Quiz
Complete Richard Madeley’s link from Monday’s GMB: “As a planet we are witnessing this extraordinary and extensive act of evil taking place not very far from where we are sitting . . .”
A) “And Richard Gaisford is in Kyiv.”
B) “And Lorraine will be here at 9 o’clock.”
TV Gold
THE peerless Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty (Sky Atlantic).
BBC2’s binge-worthy Muhammad Ali masterpiece.
Ant & Dec’s Ding Dong That’s My Doorbell game, on Takeaway.
Lee Mack taking a refreshingly brutal approach to departing 1% Club contestants: “I’m a smart meter engineer.” “Not any more you’re not.”
And Scarlett Moffatt, by far the smartest and funniest celeb on BBC2’s Pilgrimage: The Road To The Scottish Isles, defending her faith from the sort of dismissive sneers that would have the BBC blowing a righteous fuse if they were aimed at any other religion except Christianity.
Quiz show contestant of the week
The 1% Club, Attila Annus.
Or, as I’m sure he’s known to his friends, Attila the Bum
INCIDENTALLY, you know you’re old when you look at the all taut, bikini-wearing twenty- something swingers like Gabriella, on Channel 4’s Open House: The Great Sex Experiment and you think: “Why’s no one using the swimming pool?
"What a waste.”
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Sarah Ferguson and Chucky from Child’s Play.
Sent in by Paul Burkett, of Millwall.
Picture research: AMY READING
Great TV lies and delusions of the week
Gogglebox, Pete: “I’d love to meet Alison Hammond. She’s up there with, like, Elton John.”
Pilgrimage: The Road To The Scottish Isles, Shazia Mirza: “If you don’t like comedy and don’t like laughing, you won’t recognise me.”
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Tipping Point: Lucky Stars, Ben Shephard: “Josh Widdecombe is trying desperately hard not to look smug.”
Try harder.