There were rumours – on Twitter, naturally – that Charlie Sheen was going into the House. But, alas, these were unfounded, and he didn’t. Maybe even Sheen has to draw the line somewhere. Instead, only four people I’d heard of actually went ahead and signed this contract with the Devil: Sally “my husband doesn’t control me” Bercow, Kerry “this is my chance to reinvent myself” Katona, Amy Childs (I believe her catchphrase is “I’m really jel”) and Jedward, who not only must be counted as one but must remain unquoted, since they don’t really do sentences.
It was clever of Channel 5 to kick their new series off with a celebrity version, but where were the names? Indeed, two had to be imported from America: the ex-wife of David Hasselhoff (who’d probably been told by her agent to acquire a catchword fast, so “What’s up, buttercup?” was repeated ad nauseam), and American Pie actress Tara Reid. Reid sounded as if she was on Temazepam, and I felt a bit sorry for her, whilst Pamela Bach-Hasselhoff was unnaturally zippy. Neither sounded particularly earthbound.
Brian Dowling, who won Big Brother Two in BB’s glory days, stepped into Davina’s shoes, and actually didn’t do a bad job. Obviously, the series is still going to be rather ghastly and depressing, and him being brilliant won’t change a thing – though I suppose it’s funny that now he has to show off professionally he’s lost all the charm and spontaneity he once had as a housemate back in the day. In the event, he was a bit stiff, but OK. He can't pull a face like Davina, though.
Katona appeared, understandably, a bit fragile and nervy – the drugs, two divorces, a custody battle with her first husband, being the victim of a News of the World sting in which a camera was placed in her own bathroom so that they could publish a video of her snorting cocaine, plus being diagnosed as bipolar, none of this could have helped. Unfortunately, she was so eager to be the first in the Big Brother diary room that she was given the first task. The poor girl has to act "like a diva" so that all her new housemates end up hating her. If they don’t hate her enough, then she’ll be “punished”. Be prepared for the first Channel 5 BB breakdown.
In BB’s early Channel 4 days, I often wondered at the professionalism of the psychologists who used to pop up every week to give us some pop-psy “insight” into the state of mind of the housemates. But “integrity” seems a very small word next to “fame” and such is the lure of telly. In any case, Channel 4 soon dispensed with their on-camera services, and made the tasks even more unpalatable, ensuring that the housemates would be at each others’ throats sooner rather than later. But even so, at least it was properly entertaining, in a good old-fashioned bear-baiting kind of way. Now it just appears flat. And when all of the spark goes out of reality TV, you know there's nothing really left to chew over but the futile tawdriness of it all.
- Watch Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 5