Holly Willoughby will be by your side on This Morning forever – unless it affects the ratings
THE dawn of a ridiculously coy new This Morning era began in the nervous company of Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond this week.
First up on the sofa? One of the Nolan Sisters, Anne, who famously fell out with the rest of the group.
“What’s lovely, though,” said Alison, preparing to shut down the subject, “is that there was a bit of a rift when the girls didn’t invite you on tour, but that’s no longer the case.”
So move along, there’s nothing to see here.
An approach every This Morning host now has to adopt because the show has been sitting on the feud of the decade for weeks, offering no definitive explanation as to why its “golden couple” were no longer on speakers.
Hissy fits
The media and public abhors an information vacuum, of course, so it was filled with fantastic theories to explain away the frostiness, with my absolute favourite being the one which claimed the woman who rejoiced in the nickname “Holly Willabooby” had fallen out with Phil on a point of feminist principle and her demands for an all-female line-up on International Women’s Day.
Yeah, course she did, I thought.
Then suddenly, at the weekend, Schofield was gone.
The subject could no longer be avoided but was dealt with by a 30-second statement that was as glowing and warm as the next Co-op funeral service advert and concluded with Hammond saying: “We all know Phil’s one of the best live broadcasters this country’s ever had.”
It was a puzzling and meagre return for over 20 years’ service and missed the chance for a full highlights package that should have included at least one of Schofield’s Spin To Win hissy fits and his seminal 2018 Halloween interview with Amethyst Realm, aka “the woman who’s going to marry a ghost”.
Amethyst was back, incidentally, two years later, claiming she’d had to call off her engagement to Ray the ghost because he’d “fallen in with a bad crowd on holiday in Thailand”.
“Well,” said Schofield, smirking to the audience, “Break-ups are never easy.”
No, Phil, they’re not.
None has been quite as baffling and undignified, however, as Phil and Holly’s schism, from which absolutely no one has emerged in a good light, including ITV, the show itself, gloating former colleagues and Schofield, who released a farewell statement saying, “I’ve always tried to be honourable and kind”, in the manner that only someone who realises he hasn’t always been either of those two things can.
The one who really stands out in this mess, though, is Schofield’s protege Holly Willoughby, the woman who said, live on This Morning’s famous 2020 coming out episode: “Whatever happens in the future, I’ll be sat by your side. I will be by your side for ever and ever and ever.”
Or at least until such time as you prove detrimental to Holly’s brand and the ratings slip below 510,000, as they did last Wednesday.
Then you’re toast, pal, ’cos there are no flies on this girl.
It’s a brutal approach but she’s been backed all the way by ITV, who clearly take Holly at her own high estimation and must have missed all the breakout projects she’s tried in recent years.
A Surprise Surprise reboot came and never really established itself before departing in 2015.
BBC1’s Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof melted after one series, as did her game show, Take Off.
Although, it’s probably fair to say, no presenter on earth could’ve got an international travel-themed project airborne during a global pandemic and lockdown.
She will now return to This Morning, after yet another holiday, on June 5.
Until then, the show must go on and awkward smiles have to be fixed in place for the benefit of the viewers, who ITV executives clearly believe are as thick as a submarine’s door.
It won’t wash, though. The presenters can tiptoe around the subject of feuds all they like, the public has seen the ugly truth behind the mask, so it’ll probably have the same reaction I did when beauty expert Sarah Jossel arrived, on Monday, to share her tips on: “How to avoid signs of stress and ageing around the eyes.”
- Don’t fall out with Holly Willoughby.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In human anatomy, the three small bones known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup are located in which sensory organ?”
Jenny Eclair: “The toe.”
Romesh: “The claimant to the British throne who launched an unsuccessful rebellion in 1745 is Bonnie Prince who?”
Pamela Cookey: “Clyde.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Who co-wrote the autobiography Ooh! What A Lovely Pair with Ant McPartlin?”
Chris: “Dick Emery.”
Bradley Walsh: “In Australia the term Mugaccino refers to a mug of what type of coffee?”
Dylan: “A flat white.”
Random irritations
ITV savings expert Martin Lewis dyeing his hair a vivid shade of vermillion at some point between Tuesday’s This Morning and Thursday’s GMB (a waste of money, pal.)
BGT turning into the most nauseatingly woke show on TV.
This Morning auditionee Craig Doyle seriously asking Rishi Sunak: “Do you cry at DIY SOS?”
And Future Food Stars host Gordon Ramsay claiming: “Glasgow was where I started my career, not as a chef but as a footballer.”
’Cos Gordon’s football career belongs in exactly the same category as a third series of Future Food Stars. Fantasy.
TIME FOR A WEE DRINK
RIGHT at the beginning of The Big Celebrity Detox on E4, the show’s spiritual guide and full-time flannel merchant, Sah D’Simone, told the assembled C-list prongs: “A celebrity’s life can be manic and completely fully booked.”
Or it can be empty and under-employed.
In which case, they end up here doing absolutely anything they can to stave off the inevitable return to civilian life.
And I mean “anything”. For, within the space of two weeks, they’ve had coffee enemas, engaged in nude mirror gazing and spanking therapy, vomited to order and drunk their own p***.
Even more ambitiously, the show also attempted to steam cleanse Kerry Katona’s nether regions, or “yoni”, without the aid of Yellowstone Park’s Old Faithful geyser.
Officially, it’s all done in the name of spiritual enlightenment.
But we all know the real score here, as does the poor narrator, Joanne McNally, who’s lumbered with the medical disclaimers: “To be clear, drinking aged urine goes against medical advice.”
The other overriding issue with The Big Celebrity Detox, though, was spelt out with an interactive “connection exercise”, when Sah D’Simone, the coercive sod who’s in charge of these dumbbells, took his first look at the likes of David Potts, Love Island’s Toby Aromolaran, Martin Roberts and Chloe Veitch, off Too Hot To Handle, and said: “I want you to complete this sentence. If you really knew me . . . ”
If I really knew them? It’d be a bloody start.
MEANWHILE, over on I’m A Celeb South Africa’s unseen bits show, Carol Vorderman explains: “Somebody’s going to become the legend, is going to be first, and in Welsh that’s ‘cyntaf’.”
Which is a bit divisive, Carol, as you’re all cyntafs to me.
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Sam Ryder and Leto Otel from Ballmastrz 9009 (me neither).
Sent in by Fab Flo.
Lookalike Of The Week wins a copy of Never Will I Die, the life-affirming autobiography of SBS legend Toby Gutteridge.
Great sporting insights
ADAM VIRGO: “It only takes a minute for things to change in an instant.”
Joleon Lescott: “Camavinga has shown a lack of inexperience.”
John Fendley: “Roy Hodgson has put faces on smiles.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
DEAF subtitle correction of the week, courtesy of Soccer Saturday’s Tim Sherwood: “He’s not the same player, but the sumo . . . Bissouma.”
TV GOLD
KENDALL and Ewan’s speeches at Logan Roy’s funeral on the best Succession of the series (episode nine).
Amazon Prime’s seriously under-sold Hapless, which goes where BBC and Channel 4 sitcoms are just too uptight, compromised and woke to tread.
Lee Mack’s undisguised glee at coming across a contestant called Matt Hancock on The 1% Club.
And Soccer Saturday’s Gary Weaver providing my favourite moment of live commentary this season, at the League Two semi-final play-off: “Salford City have taken their research from the England national team coming into this play-off penalty shootout . . . it’s long, it’s still rising, he’s blazed it over the crossbar.”
Yep, they certainly have, Gary.
JEFF STELLING has fulfilled multiple roles anchoring Soccer Saturday for the last 25 years.
As well as being the host, he’s also its resident statistician, comedian, psychotherapist, memory man and translator (from footballer speak into the original English).
Greater than all these gifts, though, is the feeling that he’s a friend to us all for the simple yet strangely unfashionable reason that he’s so clearly in love with the game of football.
If you adore it as much as Jeff, I’d hope you’d make a point of watching at 3pm on Sunday, when the great man will perform his very last masterclass on Sky Sports News.
On a medium now governed by empty gestures, virtue signalling and political correctness, live sports broadcasting will almost certainly never be as good as Jeff Stelling again.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week.
I’m A Celebrity South Africa: Unseen Bits, Joe Swash: “What a wonderful voice Carol (Vorderman) has got.”
This Morning, Alison Hammond: “There’s Nick Ferrari and Matthew Wright. Aren’t they beautiful?” No.
And The Big Celebrity Detox, Sah D’Simone: “My first impression of Megan Barton-Hanson is she’s not willing to go the whole way.”
Funny. My first impression was the exact opposite.