Matthew eats… Celebrity Gogglebox

I admit to being apprehensive when I heard there was going to be an entire series of Celebrity Gogglebox. This was for two reasons. Firstly, the one-off specials that had been done had hardly set the world alight. Surely to protect their careers, celebs have to be more conscious of what they say? A misplaced comment on Brexit and that’s their role in panto gone for a couple of seasons.

The second was the other spin off, Gogglesprogs, has never been that great. These two factors combined meant that the whole thing felt like a cash cow or scheduler filler. Even worse, it could have fallen into plugging a celeb’s project. Not a great premise to get people watching.

But I was wrong. The show has actually been a complete and utter joy. Whilst some of the celebs are guarded and a bit bland (a criticism as worthy of normal Gogglebox to be fair) others are absolute delights.

Joe Swash and Stacey Solomon are a brilliant couple and seem to emanate unabashed joy with each other, whilst still feeling like a real couple. They are ridiculously cute together, even when making little digs at each other. They need to be featured more.

Nick Grimshaw and his niece Liv are also gems. The most frustrating thing is seeing Nick bring his natural wit to full effect here when he completely failed to use it on The X Factor. Perhaps he is one of those people who shines best when the light is only on him?

The stars of the show without a doubt though are Rylan Clarke-Neal and his mum Linda. The two of them steal the show every single time. I have doubled over nearly in pain at the arguments between them about various things, from comparing ducks to ostriches, whether Rylan can visit the moon or not on holiday and what happens to a woman’s body parts after giving birth.

The best argument was about Egypt when Linda declared with confidence she wouldn’t go anywhere near a pyramid. This, it was revealed, was due to her fear being trapped in their due to some kind of curse. Rylan tried to explain that real life isn’t like the film The Mummy, to which Linda responded by pointing out the fates of the architects who went exploring. The fact she meant archaeologists was left implicit.

There are countless others on the show I could do without. But that is the nature of the beast. What matters is I have been converted. It is a joyous treat on a Friday evening.

 

Matthew eats… Eurovision: You Decide

Some mysteries are easier to solve than others. I for one wouldn’t want to unpick any of those impossible maths challenges. I can however solve the case of the UK’s terrible run at Eurovision.

All the clues are there, but the problem is too many people look at the symptom, the grand final in May, rather than the cause, which in this case is the national selection process, the final of which occurred on Friday. I present to you, the criminal that is Eurovision: You Decide.

The format this year was a little different from normal, with six acts divided into pairs and having a song each. In other words, three songs in two different styles. In theory this is a good idea, as you can pair up the arrangement and the singer better to the song. It does prevent self-written songs though, with all the tracks produced by committee.

Of course, that relies on the three songs being quality to begin with. I don’t think any of them were. ‘Freaks’ was infuriatingly catchy but had awful lyrics. ‘Sweet Lies’ never really hit top gear as either a dance track or a ballad. ‘Bigger than Us’ was the cheesiest of cheese-fests. A stronger performer on all three was fairly self-evident, although if true justice occurred the public would have been able to vote on both versions of ‘Bigger than Us’ and ‘Freaks’ eliminated straight away.

Michael Rice’s take on ‘Bigger than Us’ was the best vocal of the night and an understandable winner. It fails the charisma test though. Some proper performance arts training will help, as will someone teaching him how to keep the microphone in the right place at all times. There is too much arm flailing in the choreography at present and a cruel draw in the final will guarantee us last place.

In some respects the problems run deeper than the songs though. The mocking tone we associate with Eurovision is present here. There is an amateur hour standard of production, with Mel Gidroyc and Mans Zemerlow frequently looking at the wrong camera and Gidroyc even at one point wandering off the set. I doubt you would see such sloppiness on any of the Scandinavian selection shows.

It is this feeling we are taking it as a joke that costs us every year. We can send whatever song we like, but if it is done with a sneer or a giggle we will get punished.

I argue we need to promote Rylan Clarke-Neal from head judge to presenter (he is surprisingly professional for a reality TV graduate). I also think that as good as the matching exercise was in theory, it didn’t work in practice. If they want a twist, make is self-written songs only. This encourages the performers to sing sincerely, a common theme amongst previous winners. And make the whole thing more professional. If even all that fails to produce a result, then we may need to make a second exit from Europe.