Then they climbed in a dirty van whereupon thousands of bugs rained down on them from the roof. \u201cOh my God, they\u2019re biting my tits!\u201d squealed the ex-model Kelly Brook, reminding us that her cleavage in a bikini is the money shot ITV knew would be plastered over the newspapers, and so it has proved. <\/p>\n
Brook is clearly going for the \u201cCelia Imrie\u201d award after name-dropping that she once let off a terrible fart in front of Madonna while at her house in Los Angeles (Imrie broke wind on The Celebrity Traitors). OK, I admit that is a decent party icebreaker. But fish guts, eyeballs and scaring lizards \u2026 is this still how people wish to be entertained? <\/p>\n
Well, actually yes it would appear so. Last Sunday\u2019s launch night achieved a peak audience of 7.3 million viewers, marking ITV\u2019s highest overnight of 2025 and the biggest entertainment launch on any channel this year. It also pulled the highest number of 16-to-34-year-olds since the 2024 Euros. So, that\u2019s me told.<\/p>\n
This is inconvenient for my argument that this show, on its 25th series, looks even more past its sell-by date compared with that fresh young buck The Celebrity Traitors, which in my opinion shows how modern game shows should be. By which I mean focusing on the psychological long game and not who is constipated on the dunny.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Who should be in series two of The Celebrity Traitors? Our 19 picks<\/a><\/p>\n The Celebrity Traitors, with its sparkling A-list of celebrities, drew 6.1 million viewers on its launch night, although this grew to 11.7 million (impressive in the streaming age). To be fair, the line-up for I\u2019m a Celebrity this year is not terrible, also including as it does Ruby Wax, Jack \u201cson of Ozzy\u201d Osbourne and the lioness Alex Scott. Wax is proving easily the best hire so far because she is funny despite burning the communal rice. But even if you once delighted in seeing people eating sheep\u2019s vagina, aren\u2019t you kind of over it now? <\/p>\n The puerile actor-themed eating games began early with Wax eating a pig\u2019s scrotum and a bull\u2019s penis while Angry Ginge (a YouTuber) chewed on a crocodile\u2019s anus. LOL! \u2018\u201cBenedict Bum-berbatch!\u201d chuckled the cheeky chappies Ant and Dec, using a pun that Crackerjack would have rejected, while more of my brain cells died.<\/p>\n Full disclosure: I decided long ago that I hated this template of unpalatable d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu slop, partly because it is dull, dull, dull, but mostly because it blithely exploits wildlife. Chris Packham once wrote to Ant and Dec, calling the show \u201ca grotesque blot on the reputations of both yourselves and ITV\u201d. The exploitation of animals betrays \u201ca dangerous disconnect between a world increasingly concerned with an environmental crisis and a reckless \u2026 part of the media which doesn\u2019t appear to give a shit\u201d, he added. Can\u2019t argue with that. This is a show that paid Nigel Farage a reported \u00a31.5 million to appear two years ago and he was pretty \u201cmeh\u201d. The sums paid this year are apparently far less (between \u00a395,000 and \u00a3250,000), but the contestants on The Celebrity Traitors reportedly received a flat fee of between \u00a330,000 and \u00a340,000 \u2014 and delivered an infinitely better quality show.<\/p>\n \u2022 How well do you know Celebrity Traitors? Take our quiz<\/a><\/p>\n But it\u2019s the fakeness I can\u2019t bear. Up in their helicopters the celebrities pretended to be shocked and horrified that they would have to parachute onto the beach. \u201cOh no!\u201d, \u201cWhat??\u201d they faux-gasped. Oh, please. You know very well that this happens every year and we know you have all been psychologically tested up to the armpits, so do stop insulting our intelligence.<\/p>\n Before long they were bonding over the campfire and weeping over family photos even though they had only been in the camp for four days. I mean, if this is your thing, crack on, but honestly I\u2019d argue that you would have a more sophisticated time browsing willy warmers in Poundland.<\/p>\n Matt Smith and Sarah Greene star in The Death of Bunny Munro<\/p>\n CLERKENWELL FILMS\/SKY UK<\/p>\n And now from the ridiculous to the sublime. The Death of Bunny Munro (Sky Atlantic) is the best TV drama I have seen in months. It is depraved, shocking, funny, depressing, heartbreaking, operatically discomforting and absolutely beautiful. It is a work of art and although Matt Smith puts in the performance of his life as the sex addict Bunny Munro, Rafael Math\u00e9 is equally as good as his adorable, neglected son, Bunny Jr. <\/p>\n The child punches his weight as hard as the titular antihero in this morality tale of a chaotic father and his son who go on the run from social services in Brighton after Bunny Jr\u2019s mother hangs herself. Give that boy a Bafta. Give them both one.<\/p>\n Bunny Munro is a charismatic but selfish hedonist who lives on booze, drugs and shagging bored housewives, to whom he tries to sell face creams as a door-to-door salesman. To give you an idea of how low he will sink, during his wife\u2019s funeral he becomes aroused by the sight of a nipple on a painting of Mary feeding baby Jesus and leaves his nine-year-old son alone while he goes to the church lavatory to masturbate furiously. (I did not envy Smith filming this scene. It lasts a long, long time.) <\/p>\n He takes his grieving child to strip joints and attends to his sore, infected eyes by making him wear sunglasses (the boy is thrilled). The older Bunny idolised his own terrible, selfish father (David Threlfall) and the younger in turn worships his own chaotic dad, but all the while knowing that his needs are not being met. Karma comes calling.<\/p>\n \u2022 Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n It is adapted from the novel by Nick Cave and features some of his wonderful music (Bright Horses at the end comes like a punch to the guts) \u2014 he also makes a cameo appearance. Smith\u2019s performance put me in mind of Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s in Patrick Melrose (his finest hour, in my opinion) for its exceptionality. I can\u2019t recommend it highly enough. <\/p>\n Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix<\/a>, the best Prime Video TV shows<\/a>, the best Disney+ shows<\/a>, the best Apple TV+ shows<\/a>, the best shows on BBC iPlayer<\/a>, the best shows on Sky and Now<\/a>, the best shows on ITVX<\/a>, the best shows on Channel 4<\/a> streaming, the best shows on Paramount+<\/a> and our favourite hidden gem TV shows<\/a>. Don\u2019t forget to check our critics\u2019 choices to what to watch this week<\/a>, and browse our comprehensive TV guide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I once read that glue-sniffing kills human brain cells faster than most other stupid activities. That may be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-277462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/6879739d-1b56-42f8-ba29-2b67b45b66d3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n