The ‘celebrity’ plumber from BBC1’s Unbreakable is a total ball cock – take him to the jungle

UNLESS I was dreaming, last night Falklands veteran Simon Weston and his wife Lucy circled under a bungee jump to the Bee Gees’ How Deep Is Your Love.

Over 140 feet above them, Denise Welch and husband Lincoln Townley sang along between last words of encouragement.

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They then jumped into the void with a final “3-2-1,” where they twitched and wriggled for a deadly minute, until Denise asked plaintively, “How can anyone think that’s fun?”

As indeed.

The question hanging over BBC1’s Unbreakable, a show that, if you can ever imagine such a thing having to exist, must be a six-part, outward-facing version of All Star Mr & Mrs.

Of course it is not sold to us that way.

According to host Rob Beckett, who is joined by relationship expert Maria McErlane and psychologist Anjula Mutanda, just in case the fun breaks out, “This is the show that puts celebrity relationships under the microscope through a series of challenges.”

To this grisly ending they’re gathered, along with their pluses: Simon, Denise, Shanaze Reade, Charlie Mullins and comedian Stephen Bailey, who’s the guy you get if you don’t get tom allen, who’s the guy who you get if you can’t get Joe Lycett, who do you get if you can’t get Alan Carr, who do you get if . . .

You understand it. You didn’t get many people. And you can understand the reluctance, if they really wanted to see who has the most solid relationship, they would just check the biogs, where they would find out that Simon and Lucy have been together for 32 years, Charlie and his other half met each other before eight months.

But that would be too logical and simple, so BBC1 instead dreamed up a series of weird Taskmaster Lite challenges and then took their lives, declaring that the bonus bungee jumping points will go to Stephen and his partner Rich who were too scared to jump, they still deserved it: “They didn’t give in to peer pressure.”

If that weren’t enough to end the conversation, someone also made sure to have these challenges run at the icy pace of two an hour, meaning there’s so much downtime that a bird actually perched on Lincoln Townley’s head during s **t first episode and they left it in the final edit.

In terms of targeted criticism, this is as good as ever.

However, if you want to know why it was such perfectly judged crap, you’ll have to force yourself to watch as the celebs declare undying love to their partner to a ringing piano accompaniment, or watch Anjula spill her guts about poverty, homophobia, mental illness, ADHD and a whole Set of other important themes that, contrary to popular belief, are diluted rather than amplified on TV by their incessant repetition.

Just to grind viewers a little more, these confessions don’t take place in a massive mansion. Oh no no no

It’s what Anjula and all the other busybodies in Britain call “a safe space”. As you can probably imagine, it’s hard to shine in such clinical circumstances.

The only surprising thing about Unbreakable, however, is that a proper reality TV star seems to emerge in the unnaturally toned features of 69-year-old Charlie Mullins, who boasts in his own description of “the world’s most famous plumber”.

Charlie is in a bit of a hurry to let us all know his own lines are still working as well, and the “lucky” beneficiary is 32-year-old “recording artist” friend RaRa, who treated us all to a song in episode one .

man, the noise. If you heard such a groan from one of your load-bearing walls, you would call Charlie to tighten the pipe supports.

But right now I’d probably have both on the next plane to the Australian jungle, or any other famous format more impressive than Unbreakable, a series that confirms two depressing truths about television.

The first is why television is bringing back so many old ideas like Big Brother, Gladiators, The Big Breakfast, because its new ones are mostly rubbish.

Second, the BBC is now so thoroughly compromised and poisoned by the waking cult that institutionally it is unable to enjoy it or even come close to the idea.

We all deserve better, just like Charlie Mullins. But in the meantime, Unbreakable’s format demands that the world’s most famous plumber must yell blindfolded instructions over a megaphone at his girlfriend RaRa as she tries to find a flag in the “love maze.”

Unless I dreamed that too.

Random TV irritations

ITV’s Masked Dancer, coming to the end of his useful existence with the Candlestick reveal, is: ‘Bake Off Star. . . Liam Karl”. (WHO?)

Football Saturday’s four virtue signaling experts wear a total of 12 themed badges.

Martin Lewis strikes his ‘tormented genius at work’ pose on Good Morning Britain.

Married at First Sight Smallpox Thomas achieves the very rare distinction of being too toxic for reality television.

And the equally vicious Alastair Campbell, who admonished Make Me Prime Minister’s C4 candidates at the end of their crisis management assignment to be “snarky and derogatory” and “land a rocket in another country”. Because that’s Alastair’s job.

Tony’s Striply Superb

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AT Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday night, BBC1’s wake cult collided head-on with viewers of the show and the resulting bang was heard across the UK.

Eventual casualties included the terribly unlikely pairing of Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice, who would have been a much better match for one of the women and obviously weren’t too upset about being eliminated.

And why should he be?

After all, the show spent the first decade and a half of its existence reminding us that “dance is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire,” before deciding it was actually about “diversity,” “inclusion,” and all sorts of other themes already covered by a thousand different BBC shows.

Luckily for non-voters, Strictly viewers are far more honest than all the precious souls who claimed they were “shocked” by the decision, and they hate outright political manipulation almost as much as they hate the honest endeavor and comedy of Tony dear Adams, whose third-round samba was simultaneously technically useless and artistically brilliant.

If you’ve seen it from the start, you’ll have known that this was a Full Monty movie week tribute.

If you were there in the middle of his striptease, you probably thought Abel Ferrara had recast Top Cat’s Officer Dibble as Harvey Keitel’s bad lieutenant.

But it was, as Anton du Beke has hinted, the very essence of Strictly, although a weary Tony admitted afterwards: “I’m gone from sort of ‘what the hell is going on?’ then, second week, kind of ‘how do I get out of this?’

“Then I kind of, kind of, just kind of decided to do it.”

And you know what? i really like him

Doppelganger of the week

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THIS week’s winner is Liz Truss and the insane, screaming woman who conducts the interrogations on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.

Sent in by Gareth R via email.

TV gold

THE Abbott and Costello charm of Paul Whitehouse’s relationship with Bob Mortimer on BBC2’s Gone Fishing.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s outstanding performance as Richie in The Bear (Disney+).

Dianne Buswell’s irresistible Flash Bang Wallop choreography.

And the brilliant Bill Maher Unified Theory Of Wokeness on Real Time points out: “Throughout history, slavery has been the norm, not the exception.

“From the Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, British, early Americans to R. Kelly.”

Do yourself a favor and check it out on YouTube.

delusions of the month

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GREAT TV Lies and delusions of the month. Married at First Sight: “Hello MAFS fans, Kwame here. I miss you? Of course you do.”

Strictly Come Dancing, Claudia Winkleman: “Next up, Matt Goss does a samba dressed up as John Travolta and it’s really good.”

Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, Ferne McCann, left: “People see me as a reality star and it annoys me when they say I have no talent.”

Then try to say “The all-rounder Ferne McCann” with a straight face.

TV quiz. What was Frozen Planet II narrator Sir David Attenborough talking about on Sunday night when he said: “Since last autumn they’ve been in a state of suspended animation. Her heart has stopped beating, only her brain remains active, and then only very, very weak”?

A) The Painted Turtle.
B) The Lapland bumblebee.
C) The Conservative Party Committee of 1922.

GREAT TV mysteries: Why didn’t Injury Lawyers 4 U move their headquarters to Walford?

Where is the secret army of Naga Munchetty fans hiding?

How come Married At First Sight contestants are always fucking ironing?

And, more importantly, how many senior BBC executives and producers have been sacked for destroying A Question Of Sport?
My guess is no.