Watching Tom Watson and Co’s sea trip on Don’t Rock The Boat has me ready to heave to

FOR a moment there, last night, I really was ­wondering why Labour’s former Deputy Leader Tom Watson had chosen to row the length of Britain with a bunch of minor celebrities.

Then Craig Charles urgently needed to take a dump. Someone had to pass the bucket, Tom stepped forward and I thought: “Yeah, makes sense now.”

The only real surprise, I suppose, was that Tom resisted the urge to fling the bucket’s contents everywhere, ’cos he wouldn’t have been nearly so restrained back in the day.

It’s still a bit of a busman’s holiday for him, though, on ITV’s Don’t Rock The Boat, a sporting challenge of sorts, hosted by AJ Odudu and Freddie Flintoff and featuring two teams of C-list flotsam.

In the red boat, with Tom and Craig, we’ve got Jodie Kidd, Fleur East, Victoria Pendleton and Emmerdale’s Adam Thomas.

In the blue boat there’s Kimberly Wyatt, Denise Lewis, The Chase’s Shaun “The Dark Destroyer” Wallace, Love Islander Jack Fincham, Lucy Fallon and someone called Joe Weller, who described himself as “a YouTuber, boxer and legend”, though he might just as well be the new Deputy Leader of the Labour Party for all I know.

It’s hardly Ali vs Foreman, as you can see.

HEAVING THEIR GUTS UP

But over the next five nights ITV has invited us to watch highlights of their epic dawdle, from Cornwall in the south to the West Highlands of Scotland, on prime-time television, while breathlessly demanding to know: “Who will win the race for glory?”

Absolutely no one, is my guess at this early stage.

For both teams were no more than two miles out of St Ives harbour, on the first leg to Pembrokeshire, when they began heaving their guts up due to a combination of the Bristol Channel swell and the overwhelming stench of sycophancy.

“Kimberly, you’re doing great, you really are.”

BELCH.

“This girl is a warrior right here.”

BLURP.

“Craig’s the real hero of this day, literally rowing with a bucket between his legs.”

BLEEEEUUUUUUUUUURGH.

Weirdly diverting it was as well, for about ten minutes, ’cos you’ve never seen so many queasy celebs in a confined space or anyone vomit as gracefully as Kimberly of The Pussycat Dolls.

Even ITV knew this vomit/race combo wasn’t enough for most viewers, though, because they’d added some SAS: Who Dares Wins-style “land challenges” for two members of the team while the others were heaving away.

MINOR MYSTERY

I say “most viewers” because, let me be honest here, I’m transfixed by the presence of Tom Watson, who used to be so large he’d have shown up on the shipping forecast.

He’s lost most of the ballast now, but Tom’s still rowing away like a man who knows he’s getting eaten first if this thing ends up like the Wreck Of The Medusa.

Before he took to the sea, of course, Tom was probably best known for two main reasons.

Firstly, a campaign against the tabloid press that, depending on your point of view, was either driven by cynical political opportunism or his deep respect for privacy and the truth.

And secondly, his championing of paedophile fantasist Carl Beech, whose lies hounded Leon Brittan, an innocent man, to his grave.

Why ITV thought Tom Watson, whose legacy should read “Deputy Leader Of Labour: The Antisemitic Years”, was an appropriate person to take part in a light entertainment celebrity show is a minor mystery to me.

I understand his motivation, though, beyond the fee no one mentions and his need to be loved.

For underneath the blank, charisma-free canvas of the true political trainspotter there was always a man who longed for the razzle-dazzle of the showbiz world and thought he was destined for a much greater role in life than cleaning up Jeremy Corbyn’s s***.

And here he is now . . .  Cleaning up Craig Charles’s s***.

Onwards and upwards, Tom.

Hull of a samba, Jacqui

SATURDAY night’s light entertainment began with death projections, a government suicide note and a corpse graph predicting anything up to 4,000 fatalities a day.

So it’s probably as well BBC1 scrapped Little Mix The Search, as it could’ve pushed the nation over the edge.

There was never a chance, thankfully, that Boris would be allowed to supplant Strictly, which had me smiling again in the time it took Bill Bailey to bring his pet cockatoos, Jakob and Molly, to rehearsals and dance the most joyful quickstep with Oti Mabuse.

Bill’s a professional musician, of course, and has God-given comic timing.

So the fact he’s also a natural entertainer on the dance floor shouldn’t be any more surprising than discovering former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith isn’t. And when I say “isn’t” I mean really ISN’T.

Indeed, at the start of her samba, with poor old Anton du Beke, you’d swear Rod Hull had trapped his leading arm in the revolving doors at Selfridges.

Feathers, beaks and limbs were flying everywhere and Craig Revel Horwood even thought she’d “severed an Achilles tendon”.

A claim which rather unfortunately was subtitled as “R Kelly’s tender”. (Not from what I’ve read.)

But, oh boy, this show. When it gets things right there’s almost nothing that can lift your spirits like Strictly Come Dancing.

But when it gets things spectacularly wrong, I think it’s even better.

I’ll miss you, Jacqui.

Gemma meats a match

WISE words from The GC’s long-suffering sister-in-law Dawn, at the start of ITVBe’s Diva Forever & Ever, when she told the Essex eyesore: “You’re not always going to be 39, Gemma.”

She’s certainly not. Gemma turns 40 in January. And at the current rate of progress, 41 stone a month later.

So it will continue as long as the spoilt monster continues to surround herself with camp sycophants and the ever-indulgent crew from ITVBe.

Still, the first three episodes of the new series have certainly had some eye-catching moments.

I for one would not have missed Gemma performing Summer Nights, with Darren Day, at rehearsals for her forthcoming off-Broadway show, nor the moment where she single-handedly pulled Greece out of recession by ordering the entire menu at a Crete restaurant.

Highlight of the run so far, though, was probably the episode where Gemma was airlifted into the Yorkshire Wildlife Park inside a helicopter, rather than dangling underneath it like a tranquilised rhino, as I’d hoped.

The purpose of this visit to Project Polar was, I must admit, a bit lost on me until “Head of animals” Matt answered Gemma’s query with more feeling than any man has ever put into two words.

“What do polar bears eat?”

“Fatty meat . . . ”

Dinner’s ready, boys.

TV Gold

Strictly’s Bill Bailey lifting the national mood every Saturday.

The Keir Starmer “Foxman” sketch and Meghan Markle’s “exfoliating butt chutney”, on Spitting Image.

Those mindful moments, on Autumnwatch, when the presenters shut the hell up and we can all just wallow in the majesty of the Celtic rainforest.

And BBC2’s timely repeat of Sean Connery: In His Own Words, which paid fitting tribute to the Fountainbridge milkman, our most dearly loved actor, who spoke to the world through his films, his charitable trust and the two words indelibly inked on his arm: “Scotland forever.”

Random TV irritations

Hislop and the Have I Got News For You regulars managing to discuss the EHRC’s report without a word of criticism for Corbyn’s anti-semitic Labour Party.

David Hare’s propaganda series Roadkill putting in a good shout for the Worst Drama Of The Year title.

Bertie Carvel channeling Antony Worrall Thompson’s voice on ITV’s The Sister.

All the country’s most tiresome virtue-signallers trying to argue Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon deserve to be paid as much as the bloke who invented the show (Cowell) and four-times winner of the NTA’s Best Judge (Walliams).

And Diva Forever & Ever’s Gemma Collins failing to provide the appropriate lyrical finish as she headed for a dip in the Mediterranean: “I am humble, I am beautiful . . . ” I am the walrus. Goo goo g’joob.

Lookalike of the week

THIS week’s winner is Strictly’s MVP Bill Bailey and Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

Emailed in by Karen Michele. ­Picture research by Alfie Snelling.

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