This week I decided I should watch I’m a Celebrity...
Get Me Out of Here! (Virgin Media 1, every damn night) one last time before I die. I’m not dying, by the way, at least not to the best of my knowledge. I’m hoping to live into a cantankerous old age of annoying Audi and BMW drivers by shuffling deliberately slowly across pedestrian crossings whenever one of them is waiting to get through, and embarrassing everyone else by complaining loudly about the inconsistency of my bowel movements.
What’s the point of getting old and decrepit if you can’t have a little fun with it? My reasoning is that if I watch I’m a Celebrity now, with a bit of luck, I’ll never have to watch it again. I think the last time I sat through it from start to finish was 2010 when ‘Doctor’ Gillian McKeith – who’s gone from spreading pseudo-scientific drivel on TV shows to spreading pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories on social media – kept having hilariously unconvincing fake fainting fits. Back then, there was still some entertainment value in it.
The show has hit several speed bumps in the intervening period. It was heavily criticised in 2017 for refusing to take action when contestant Iain Lee was clearly being bullied by a clique made up of Dennis Wise, Rebekah Vardy, Amir Khan and Jamie Lomas. More recently, Covid-19 travel restrictions meant it had to relocate for two years from the Australian jungle to a castle in Wales.
Then there was Ant’s decision to take a year away .