Matt Hancock is TV gold on Celeb SAS – he’s oily & pleased with himself…but he wasn’t among stars caught cheating

CONTESTANTS were dropping like C-list flies in the heat of the Vietnamese jungle on Channel 4’s ever-gruelling series ­Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins this week.

Jermaine Pennant’s eyeballs rolled back in his head.

Someone called Jon-Allan Butterworth was flapping around in distress underneath the water coolers and The Wanted’s Siva Kaneswaran looked like he’d just heard Glow In The Dark had entered the UK charts at number 177.

Thank goodness, then, they had exactly the right man to handle such a medical ­emergency.

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who demonstrated the calm level-headedness that won him such admiring reviews from himself during the pandemic and used that experience to good effect as he hopped around, shouting: “Doctor! Doctor! Come down — we’ve got a problem.”

Determined sod

Yeah, sort it, Doctor, and watch Matt try and steal your thunder at tomorrow’s press conference.

It was a familiar story then on this intermittently brilliant series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, which has been up and panting for four weeks now.

I say “intermittently” because for my liking there isn’t nearly enough of Hancock, who is as oily, socially awkward and pleased with himself as you’d hope, but he’s also a dogged and determined sod, fitter than almost everyone else on the course and never resorts to tears, no matter how tough it gets.

This week’s theme was also tailor-made for Hancock . . . INTEGRITY, a quality Matt thought he exuded effortlessly during lockdown, of course, right up until the moment he didn’t, and we caught him snogging Gina Coladangelo.

To this end, the C4   show had set up a fitness test featuring six different exercises, two of which took place away from the gaze of the SAS staff but in front of hidden cameras, just in case any of the celebs, you know, felt the urge to cheat.

A thought that had never occurred to Matt Hancock, who was so affronted by the idea before it kicked off, he huffed: “I’ve had my integrity attacked on grounds that are totally unreasonable, probably more than is fair.

“So if I’m not trusted I find that frustrating ’cos I’ve always tried to do my best.”

Hidden cameras, cheat, Hancock.

The ingredients were all present, so you can only imagine my reaction when it transpired that two of the celebs had indeed been caught cheating.

And neither was bloody Matt Hancock.

The guilty pair were instead Love Island duo Montana Brown and Teddy Soares, who compounded the crime by trying to lie his way out of any punishment.

It’s one thing, of course, to be caught cheating.

But to have Matt Hancock rolling his eyes, more in disappointment than anger, at your deceit?

That’s TV perfection — a moment that required no further comment or post-script, let alone an escape route for either of the offenders.

The thing about TV people is, though, they are creatures of habit who can never leave well alone.

The staff called Teddy in for a questioning/therapy session, asked him to “tell us a bit about yourself” and before you knew it, we had a familiar tale of death, disease, childhood abandonment issues, and the whole glorious irony of Hancock’s moment was obliterated by a route-one sob story.

The last place any such displays of self-pity should be seen, obviously, are on a show featuring the SAS, but they’ve become a depressing routine during this series, with similar encounters being played out by Gareth Thomas, Danielle Lloyd, Jermaine Pennant, Amber Davies and Gareth Gates, who is, in many ways, patient zero for this phenomenon.

Almost exactly 21 years ago he innocently revealed he had a stutter, on Pop Idol, the nation’s hearts melted and every lazy TV producer and chancer in the country thought: “Aha!”

Two hand-flapping decades later we’ve come full circle and it’s left us with generations who are incapable of meeting any challenge, no matter how routine, without convulsing in great sobs of self-pity and in the process destroyed television shows like The X Factor, which became so hooked on this tactic they actually thought the viewers liked these “dead granny” moments.

They don’t. From the emails I receive, I can assure them Channel 4 viewers despise sob stories and think less of everyone who hides behind one, which is why they’ll ruin Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, just as surely as they destroyed The X Factor, if they go unchecked.

And unlike Hancock I won’t just be disappointed if that happens, I’ll be bloody furious.

Unexpected morons in the bagging area

THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Mac and Jack was a paired nickname of Harold Macmillan and which US President?”

Chloe: “Abraham Lincoln.”

Bradley Walsh: “Which monarch was the subject of the TV documentary The King In The Car Park?”

Justin: “Queen Elizabeth II.”

Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “The words lugs and lugholes are slang terms for which pair of organs?”

Steve: “The arms.”

Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “On which continent is the 1994 Disney animation The Lion King set?”

Gordon: “Antarctica.”

Random irritations

BIG Brother ­colossus Jenkin, claiming he’s “wasting away,” in the ITV house, despite remaining the size of St Kilda.

Paul and Zak placing Land’s End in Scotland during the post room task.

Lyse Doucet’s Black & Decker voice squeaking with indignation at almost every single thing Israel does, on the BBC News.

And Alison Hammond demonstrating the most annoying verbal glitch known to man when she asked Labour deputy Angela Rayner: “Was you happy with Keir Starmer’s plans for Britain?”

Not unless they include compulsory grammar lessons, I wasn’t.

VIRTUE SIGNALS VANISH

TRY to keep tabs on all the political issues Football Focus host Alex Scott thinks involve “an important conversation” and you’ll quickly lose count.

In recent months, subjects have included: Ukraine, every single letter of the LGBTQ+ equation, women’s rights, Black History Month, Black Lives Matter, Swansea City’s vegetarianism, the environment and the all-new wooden stadium at Forest Green Rovers.

Yet when the English FA failed to light up Wembley’s famous arch in the colours of the Israeli flag last week after the Hamas outrage, Alex was uncharacteristically silent.

In this, she’s not alone, of course.

All of Twitter’s most famous left-of-centre blowhards, who can normally spot fascism on Saturn’s outer rings, without a telescope, vanished off the face of the Earth when they were confronted by the real thing.

Have I Got News For You and Ian Hislop, who’s forever chasing easy applause, also decided events were “too awful” to discuss, even if it did let Jeremy Corbyn and all those other imbeciles who wave Palestinian flags in support of mass murderers off the hook.

A courtesy I don’t think, for a second, the BBC show would’ve extended to Israel’s political supporters if the roles had been reversed.

Ian, Alex and all the other moral guardians of the nation, of course, will be back, scrambling for the moral high ground, as soon as the next easy target presents itself.

When it really mattered, though, we saw their virtue signalling for precisely what it is – empty, self-serving, cowardly cant.

And yes, in this instance, you can pronounce cant how ever you see fit.

CHANNEL 4, celebrity high-wire walking show Don’t Look Down: “My name is Grace Barry, I’m a podcaster and social media creator, if you will.”

And if I won’t? Let’s just go with “gobby layabout”.

DOCTORS. See ya.

Lookalike of the week

THIS week’s winner is Judy Finnigan, on A Family Affair, and Dougal from The Magic Roundabout.

Sent in by K Stratford, of Belfast.

Great sporting insights

PAUL MERSON: “Less is more, except when it isn’t.”

Jamie Carragher: “This game has been a walk in the street.”

Jamie Mackie: “There was a half chance that you wouldn’t even call a half chance.”

(Compiled by Graham Wray)

MEANWHILE, on EastEnders, Ian Beale told mum Kathy: “You have to understand the state Cindy was in when she got in touch.

“She was desperate, she was broken, she was alone.”

She was playing Miss Scarlett in a touring production of Cluedo, FFS. Have a heart, Kathy.

TV GOLD

BBC4 repeating Parky’s landmark interviews with Richard Burton, Tommy Cooper and Orson Welles.

A cordless iron maintaining the admirably hopeless quality of the prizes on Blankety Blank.

Billy Billingham wiping the ­perma-smirk off Montana Brown’s cheating face on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.

BBC1’s deeply suspect drama The Reckoning giving new depth to Netflix’s Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story and ­particularly Selina Scott’s observation that: “Television protects itself.”

And Alex Beresford’s long-suffering dad Noel pre-empting the first phone call the weatherman received from his agent on returning from BBC1’s beautiful Celebrity Race Across The World: “Come on, Alex. There’s work to do, shovelling s**t.”

TELLY quiz. Sparkling dialogue on ITVBe’s My Family & Me as episode two begins with Ferne McCann announcing: “I’ve got the puffy labia,” before fiancé Lorri Haines replies: “What’s that then?”

So, is it:
A) Her nickname for Gemma Collins?
B) Her office sweep-stake draw in the new series of Drag Race UK?
C) Her list of abandoned baby names?
Or the correct answer D) Her puffy labia, you walnut-brained Essex cretin.

INCIDENTALLY, Ferne McCann: My Family & Me: “Today is a no-work day.”

As opposed to . . . ?

GREAT TV lies and ­delusions. Big Brother, Farida: “We need to remember, we’re all winners.”

Netflix, David Beckham: “I wanted to go into Madrid low key.” (Yeah, Mr No Publicity, that’s you.)

And Don’t Look Down, Love Island’s Chris Hughes: “I don’t think we could do anything worse than this.”

Says a man who has clearly never contemplated another series of You Vs Chris And Kem or Apocalypse Wow.