Reality cheques

It wasn't exactly riveting stuff away from the increasingly dangerous Bush Tucker Trials - or Bush Tucker Telegraphs as hosts Ant and Dec kept saying by mistake.

The highlight for our Newcastle buddies was when Wayne Sleep fell through his bed while using it as a trampoline. The fact that the tiny dancer, who took his first steps to success in Hartlepool, injured his ankle and ended up screeching for help from big John Fashanu to get to and from the toilet may have had something to do with it.

Poor John, viewers focused on his phobias of heights, snakes and creepy-crawlies to make his life a misery by voting for him to complete five trials to win extra food for the celebrities.

My wife was typically sympathetic concerning the suffering of a strapping sportsman and announced: "What a big wuss, isn't there anything he's not frightened of?"

Sadly, there wasn't. Mr F's fears also extended to water, yet the non-swimmer still agreed to stick his head in a tank of eels and fish. Personally, I blame the ITV1 show's phone vote format.

Not allowing the same celebrity to do challenges day after day would have been fairer. As a result of the vote Coronation Street star Chris Bisson hardly featured apart from being knocked flying when rotund Antony Worral Thompson was scared by a spider.

The chunky chef had nearly been killed by a falling branch just moments after arriving in the Australian jungle clearing. I'm not sure how close the programme makers realised they were to ending all celebrity-based reality rumpuses.

We don't mind seeing them in rat-filled tunnels with waffles tied to their heads, but having a celebrity announce "get me out of here in a hearse" might damage the ratings a little. As it was, Phil Tuffnell won as expected.

My wife had to borrow the waste-paper bin for an attack of nausea when Tuffers announced "I missed my Dawnie" with relation to his girlfriend Dawn Brown. Sadly, she, like us, had seen the chain-smoking ex-cricketer having designs on Linda Barker for two weeks.

Even so, it seems certain the new King of the Jungle will earn more than Jade Goody, the Bermondsey big mouth who has banked over £250,000 after being labelled the stupidest person ever to compete in Big Brother.

She may think that East Anglia is a foreign country, but Jade has been put on the map by the media since losing last year's Channel 4 event. According to Tabloid Tales (BBC1, Tuesday), the fact that she had a one-armed lesbian mother made all the difference.

The BBC is reduced to making shows about other channels' reality competition shows having been spectacularly unsuccessful at finding one of its own.

Programme makers are now seeking the next batch of Fame Academy candidates despite the previous series attracting as much interest as a Les Dennis comeback tour.

Of course, he still has I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here 3 and Celebrity Fame Academy 2 to go before his career evaporates completely.

Published: 17/05/2003