Celebrity infertility show was worthy but must we see men naked?
FOR reasons that had as much to do with light entertainment as science, last night Channel 4 pointed a thermal-imaging camera straight at Russell Kane’s testicles during a stand-up gig.
Not the first thing I’d have aimed at them, it’s true.
But it was quite a sauna Russell had generated down there, according to presenter Dr Anand Patel, who told the hyperactive little sod: “Your peak scrotal temperature was 37.1, three degrees higher than the ideal,” before adding the killer soundbite: “You’re literally cooking your balls.”
Which he literally wasn’t, unless I missed the best-ever episode of Celebrity MasterChef.
Stunts and over-statement, though, were all part and parcel of Celebrity Save Our Sperm, a one-off C4 investigation sparked by the revelation sperm counts have halved in the last 50 years and the alarming claim that, if these patterns continue: “Every man in the western world could be infertile by 2045”, which was an hour and a quarter before the show even started.
Testicle-cooling pads
Given the subject matter and how obsessed Channel 4 is by celebrity, the perfect network response to this problem would’ve been to book David Seaman and Dominic Cummings for the resulting investigation and challenge.
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I can’t really fault the instincts of the booker, though, who hired Russell Kane, alleged “King of Radio 1” Melvin Odoom and Made In Chelsea’s Ollie Locke, who had a whole variety of reasons for getting involved.
Ollie and his partner are currently trying to have an IVF baby, via a surrogate mother, Melvin’s under a lot of pressure to produce a grandchild and Russell’s just attempting to deal with the sort of insecurities that had him admitting: “I’ve mitigated the ageing process by taking vitamins and supplements and rubbing Minoxidil [hair restorer] into my scalp twice a day.”
He mitigated them a lot more, earlier in his showbiz career, obviously, by knocking five years off his real age, 47, which for a long time was accompanied by the immortal Wikipedia words: “Citation needed.”
Russell’s sperm count doesn’t lie, though.
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Tests revealed he was functionally infertile and ripe for the ten-week challenge of trying to reverse the process through a series of lifestyle changes.
Russell’s involved successfully cutting back on caffeine, hot tubs and Minoxidil, Ollie gave up smoking, with equally positive results, and Melvin had to keep some testicle-cooling pads in the fridge at Radio 1, which, I imagine, saw a lot worse things pass through its doors during the 1970s.
Despite the subject matter, it was all progressing in a reasonably straightforward and grown-up manner until about the halfway stage, when we were introduced to Libby Sheppard, who was described as a “sperm nutrition expert”, but probably not on any dating profile, and must have led a very sheltered life as she thought she needed to teach a group of men that it was “fun and pleasurable” to massage their genitals.
For this she required a naked assistant, Laszlo, who yanked his plums around so aggressively you’d have sworn he was plaiting challah bread at a Bake Off audition.
It was too excruciating to watch, so I didn’t.
But I knew what was really going on here and if you didn’t, the naked skinny-dip by 40 men at the end of the show should’ve told you. Channel 4 cannot help itself.
As Naked Attraction, Naked Education and Naked Alone And Racing To Get Home have all taught us recently, it’s obsessed with nudity to the point it will use any subject, no matter how worthy, to achieve this end.
It’s funny up to a point as well, I suppose, but it’s also very unwise as May produced Channel 4’s worst-ever viewing figures, advertising revenue has collapsed and huge cutbacks are needed to keep it afloat.
The correct response to this crisis is to make significant television shows, like Evacuation, instead of looking for ways to indulge its worst instincts and reverting to its most childish 1980s instincts.
It should be aware, though, there are dark and very unamusing consequences from creating programmes like Celebrity Save Our Sperm, as Russell Kane spelled out when he said: “There’s a little bit of a male pride issue ’cos I’ve got to appear on Channel 4 with a low sperm count, but I’ll probably end up doing a stand-up show about it.”
See? See what you’ve done, Channel 4? This is not public service broadcasting, tossers.
Danny's flaming Turkey
YOU cannot understand just how desperate Danny Dyer was to leave EastEnders until you’ve seen all four wretched episodes of his first breakout Australian drama on Channel 5.
It’s called Heat but shouldn’t be confused with the Robert De Niro/Al Pacino film of the same name, least of all from the point of view of the script and acting, which was so wooden it might have set off the Outback bush fire that threatened to engulf the entire cast.
How Danny’s performance as cheated husband Steve differed significantly from his role as Mick Carter, who also spent a lot of time narrowing his eyes and staring at the ground in blind fury, is anyone’s guess as well.
The longer Heat dragged on though, and the closer the fire got, the more it sounded like “TV’s Mr Versatile” was sharing his own personal angst rather than anything to do with Steve’s script or the inferno.
We’d already heard him ask, “Why does everything I touch turn to s**t?”, when he appeared to signal an abrupt career change in episode two and shouted, “I’m going to get myself another job, like, security guard, delivery driver. Whatever it takes.”
And just so long as it rules out another series of Cheat on Netflix, I think it’s probably for the best.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Chase: Celebrity Special, Bradley Walsh: “Which monarch was described by Charlotte Bronte as a ‘little, stout vivacious lady’?”
Anthony Quinlan: “Queen Elizabeth II.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Commonly used in emails and messaging, the abbreviation FWIW is typically used to mean, ‘For What It’s . . .’?”
Harriet: “Information.”
Ben Shephard: “The medical abbreviation IVF stands for ‘in vitro’ what?” Charlie: “Venus.”
Bradley Walsh: “Who wrote an article on radium for the Encyclopedia Britannica with her daughter?”
Michelle Ackerley: “Andi Oliver.”
“Marie Curie.” (Rpt)
Random TV irritations
EASTENDERS’ Eve accusing Jean Slater of being “very heteronormative,” without the entire cast telling her to “p*** off back to The Guardian”.
CeraVe moisturising cream creeping the hell out of me with their “Hey, it’s me, your dry skin” advert. Last Leg host Adam Hills trying to play the nice guy while revelling in the George Osborne poison pen wedding email.
And the BBC vanishing all white men from its women’s World Cup presenting roster, just as surely as white men were removed from Wimbledon anchoring duties and white men will be unwilling to pay the licence fee, if the Beeb takes this woke prejudice to its logical and poisonous conclusion.
Great TV sporting insights
ANDREW Castle: “Sometimes there are just no words. Absolutely magnificent.”
Jules Breach: “Let’s start with the first goal that made it 2-0.”
Kumar Sangakkara: “Ali didn’t look his usual bubbly self. He’s not usually bubbly anyway.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV GOLD
THIS is a first. Aside from a couple of old comedy repeats (Dad’s Army and Only Fools) and Viaplay’s rerun of Scotland’s epic recent triumph in Norway (get in!), I saw nothing, these past seven days, that merited the description “TV Gold”.
This owes something to Wimbledon, obviously, but also the sense that a lot of lazy, middle-class television people still work to a student schedule and believe the entire country is following the Inca trail to Machu-bloody-Picchu from mid-June to early September.
However, in my ceaseless bid to look on the bright side, I have really enjoyed Walford cameo appearances from Jasper the EastEnders parrot, who stalks around his cage squawking: “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP,” and will, if he can learn just one more phrase, not just make TV critics redundant but probably be in with a shot of marrying Sharon Watts as well.
GREAT TV mysteries of the month: What the hell is brilliant actor Jason Watkins, above, doing on Cooking With The Stars?
Why have none of EastEnders’ resident West Ham fans celebrated the Europa Conference League victory?
How come Channel 4’s Great Sex Experiment has got a “talent manager”?
And what’s the most annoying thing on TV? Tom Daley reminding us he likes knitting?
Or Owain Wyn Evans telling viewers he’s a drummer?
Neither. It was Phil and Holly sharing private on-screen jokes.
So let’s just be thankful it’ll never happen again.
GREAT TV lies and delusions. Celebrity Googlebox, Martin Kemp: “I love a little bit of Steph’s Packed Lunch.”
Celebrity Save Our Sperm, Ollie Locke: “As someone who’s not a ball-toucher myself . . .”
And Love Island, Whitney to Jess and Sammy: “I see you lot getting married, having kids. It’s like movie s**t.”
Without the movie bit.
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Wagner group psychopath Yevgeny Prigozhin, wearing a fake beard disguise, and racing pundit John McCririck. Sent in by dozens of you, but Michelle Neal was first.
CELEBRITY Save Our Sperm, Russell Kane on his low sperm count: “I’ve got anxiety because what if I could never make another child?”
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Relax, Russ. We’ll cope.
lTV name of the week was the sound recordist on Celebrity Save Our Sperm, Jonny Horne.