Celebability
Contents |
Host
Co-host
Marek Larwood (referee)
Jarred Christmas (commentator, 2017-18)
Team captains:
Scarlett Moffatt (2019, 21-23)
Stacey Solomon (2020)
Guest captains: Katherine Ryan, Pete Wicks, Snoochie Shy, Will Best, Donna Preston (1 show each, 2023)
Broadcast
Potato for ITV2, 15 June 2017 to 27 July 2023 (52 episodes in 7 series)
Synopsis
Think an hour of Iain Stirling in the middle of the week isn't enough? Neither do ITV2. That's why, between 2017 and 2023, one episode per week of Love Island was followed with a bonus 45 minutes of him administering physical games to members of the public and assorted celebrities, chosen to complement the celebrities' abilities.
The celebrities - all young and familiar to the ITV2 audience - are shown with unusual abilities. Not spill things on a moving train. Count off a minute in your head. Guess what a dog is thinking.
One of the friends volunteers to go against the celebrity, and takes on a challenge. For instance, to guess what a dog is thinking, the dog picks one of three pictures, and the celeb and challenger try to pick the same option.
Bone, lamppost, or...
All of the challenges are done in the studio, on the arena floor. When not playing, both teams sit above a giant video wall, and some very clever shot direction makes the wall look taller than it is.
The final round for the first three series featured the celebrities who won their challenge, and the teammates who won theirs. The celebrities are on the studio floor, and the team are asked questions. All of the answers are one of the celebs on the floor. £500 for each correct answer; the team has the option to go double-or-quits on a final question. From series 4, successful challengers sent their defeated celebrities to stand in front of pictures behind which prizes were hidden, and were asked if they wanted to gamble what they'd won for all of the prizes.
The teams are dots above the wall.
Celebability is fast-moving: they've a lot of material to cram into a 45-minute slot. The games are explained and umpired by Marek Larwood, as a slightly desperate character who is the butt of jokes. There's also a commentary by Jarred Christmas. The show is better because Iain Stirling has someone to bounce his jokes off, but many viewers grew to dislike Marek's character.
A light show, there's no humiliation beyond punctured egos. The series went out at 10pm, so there's a lot of swearing. And it's on ITV2, so expect entertainment and laughter.
A number of changes were made for the show's third series. Firstly, the show began being called Iain Stirling's Celebability, and a promo was produced with Stirling proclaiming the show 'so good, it's got my name on it'. Secondly, narrator Jarred Christmas was removed, with the challenges left unnarrated and Stirling doing the trailers - probably a wise move all told. However, the largest change was that the teams were reduced to four from five, with Scarlett Moffatt captaining the challengers' team - which, in this reviewer's humble opinion, undermines the 'plebs vs slebs' dynamic of the show. However, someone must have liked it, given that it returned the following winter with an increased budget. The programme seemed to struggle when Love Island came back after the pandemic, the British public's viewing habits were changing very quickly (in the sense that people weren't watching the show anymore) and ITV bosses branded the show to be "tired" and "dated". According to The Sun anyway, who would definitely never make up context-free one-word quotes with no actual attribution, so it must be true. Said paper announced the show had been axed in November 2023 to the general response of "was that still going?".
Inventor
From an original idea by Mor or Les Productions.
Title music
Music composed by Richard Levy.
Trivia
Choriza May, who appeared on series 4, would later appear on series three of RuPaul's Drag Race UK.
Stacey Solomon deputised for Scarlett Moffatt during series 4 due to Moffatt's commitments to panto, while a run of guest team captains deputised for an episode each in series 7 due to Moffatt's commitments to being ill (she contracted a sick bug and opted not to disrupt filming).
