Monday, 1 December 2014

"I'M A D-LISTER, GET ME OUT OF HERE!'

It happens every year around Christmas; much like the allocating of a secret Santa and realising that the person you have chosen is the only person you do not know, or the inevitable struggle to balance the star on top of the tree.  It’s also similar to these events in the sense that we try desperately hard to avoid them every single year, relentlessly vowing ‘I’m never doing that again!’, but somehow we always end up getting sucked into the whirlwind of the optimistic Christmas spirit and naively hope ‘this year it will be different’. Of course, I’m talking about ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!’ (to those lucky ones who managed to break away from the wrath of Ant and Dec’s tedious jokes, you heard right; yes, it’s still on). Every year, we promise ourselves that evenings will be spent playing endless games of scrabble, singing round a piano and getting on top of the vast work load. But every year, the same idiot in our friendship group mentions the gossip of the jungle, and with a deep sigh, our promise of a bush tucker trial-free Christmas is quickly recomposed to the tune of ‘one episode won’t hurt’. Next thing you know, the festivities are amongst us; mince pies are on sale in Morrison’s, Santa is making his rounds to the school fetes and church fundraisers, yet the only concern in your life is the fact that the campers only have two out of eight stars so they only get half of a kangaroo’s foot to share for dinner.

Annually, whilst pretending to be doing something worthwhile online, we stumble across the ‘LEAKED I’M A CELEBRITY LINE UP’ article on ‘Yahoo! News’ . Pfft… ‘news’! With great disappointment, we realise that the producers are, once again, scraping the celebrity barrel. Clearly actual stars have more sense than these ‘wannabies’.
So what do you need for the generic ‘I’m A Celebrity’ group? Firstly it goes without saying that you need a heart-throb. A male heart-throb. One of those people of whom the parents will roll their eyes, the teenage girls will swoon over, and the boys will write sarcastic Facebook statuses about, whilst the rest of us sit back and wonder ‘but who is he?’  
Next you need an airhead. She and The Heartthrob are likely to hook up after he sees her washing in the nearby stream. Needless to say the same image of her will be plastered over certain newspapers (*cough* ‘The Sun’) the following morning. Of course, this ‘admiration’ is definitely due to her outstanding personality, not the ill-fitting bikini she sports which bares more of a resemblance to a plastic ‘Tesco’ carrier bag which has split under the weight of two melons being carried in it. Whilst fathers in the living room pretend to be reading the newspaper but, rather blatantly, gawp at The Airhead in her swimwear, the female viewers among us all collectively wonder how she, and the rest of the I’m A Celebrity ‘stars’ have such blemish-free skin and  smooth legs and underarms when luxuries such as make up and shavers are banned. Funny, eh?
You then need a handful of soap stars and old has-been sports personalities to fuel the fights, tantrums and arguments that will, rather dramatically, split the camp. Of these, one of them will be old and won’t want to get involved much (don’t worry, they will be voted out rather quickly) and one will be an American actor who nobody recognises. I hate to ruin the surprise, but if there is an old member of a boyband, it is 80% probable that they are going to win. From the very first episode, we will be able to tell this and they will be the general ‘nice’ guy that everyone gets along with. The main rule is that if they have swooshy hair, a nice face and haven’t exchanged harsh words with anyone in the first four days, you have your winner.

To be honest, watching the promo for the upcoming episode of ‘I’m A Celeb’ will give you as much detail about the happenings in the jungle as watching the whole show would. Don’t fall into the trap of being hooked by ‘tonight’s drama’ as the gushing tears and cat fights are as much as you will see on the advert, the only difference is that the TV programme runs for at least 57 more minutes, during which time, at least three of the celebrities will be trending on twitter after a nasty scrap. 

The bush tucker trials are, without a doubt, the most exciting part of the show. We all gag at the eating trials, and admire the poor soul that is so desperate for an ounce of fame that they will sit and eat various anuses and testicles in front of millions of viewers who are all urging them to throw up . There is also the one celebrity who, every year, provides us with genuine belly laughs at their reaction to a couple of creepy crawlies. What could possibly go wrong? The show would be so much more interesting with a proper element of danger; perhaps the possibility of one of the campmates being killed by a savage kangaroo (or at least a little bit poisoned by a scuttling spider). How do the celebrities get so worked up by these trials? ITV would, much to our disappointment, never allow anything remotely risky on their channel anyway.


Admit it; it’s true. The Jungle antics are the same every year, the producers have ‘copy and pasted’ every aspect of the show for the past ten years, merely changing names and the tone of the classic swear-word ‘BLEEP’ because they think we won’t notice. We do notice, however, so why do we watch it? Why did we give in and watch it last year? And more importantly, why will we give in and watch it next year? I’m An Addict, how do I get out of here?

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