Love Island

Synopsis

A hit from unpromising beginnings. Originally, it was Celebrity Love Island: 12 "celebrities" (so reckon on having heard of three), four weeks on an island, challenged to do stuff. But not very much. Whatever they called this particular variation on the theme, you basically knew what you were getting.

Every night, the contestants were seen pampering themselves, drinking alcohol, and soaking up the sun. Challenges on the show were thin. Some days, the public would vote for two of the contestants to be exiled from the remainder of the group and spend a couple of days with each other for company. On other days, the public was invited to remove people from the group, so that the series would end with one gentleman and one lady winner. Some nights, the most entertaining aspect was the way Patrick Kielty's ad-libs wound up co-host Kelly Brook.

The show was deliberately designed and scheduled as an ITV spoiler against Big Brother's 6th series. It suffered from opposition amongst the chattering classes, and initially failed to attract many viewers, but ITV stuck with the series to the planned end, and it eventually turned into a modest ratings success.

We were still surprised when the series returned the following summer, albeit under a new title. Love Island featured contestants who weren't celebrities when they left, and featured a new co-host. However, the slight magic of the first outing wasn't repeated and in November 2006 it was announced that the series had been axed.

And there we hoped it would remain, a footnote to two of the balmiest and barmiest summers of recent memory. Then ITV2 filled a large gap in its schedules with a new run of Love Island, this time with people who by and large didn't claim to be celebrities (though the odd sportsperson crept in, and at least three contestants have been Miss something-or-other). It's six weeks of this in Mallorca or six weeks of Big Brother.

Much was right about the revival: witty narration by Iain Stirling, beautiful shots of a swimming pool the size of a small county, a contemporary soundtrack written for the show. But the pace remained forced to meet the producers' needs, and the series ended in confusion - it asked the winning contestants to take the Prisoner's Dilemma, to split or steal the prize money, and it took seven series with no-one stealing for them to see sense.

Champions

2005	Fran Cosgrave and Jayne Middlemiss
2006	Calum Best and Bianca Gascoigne
2015	Max Morley and Jess Hayes
2016	Nathan Massey and Cara De La Hoyde
2017	Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies
2018	Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer
2019	Greg O'Shea and Amber Gill
2020	Finley Tapp and Paige Turley
2021	Liam Reardon and Millie Court
2022	Davide Sanclimenti and Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu
Winter 2023	Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan
Summer 2023	Jess Harding and Sammy Root
All Stars	Tom Clare and Molly Smith
2024	Mimii Ngulube and Josh Oyinsan

Theme music

First series: "Wish I" by Jem, from the album Finally Woken.

Second series: "From Fiji With Love" by Daniel Pemberton, available on his album TVPOPMUZIK.

A-Mnemonic wrote a full score for the 2015 series.

Trivia

Press following the launch of the 2024 series gleefully churned the claim that Dancing on Ice winner Joey Essex was the first celebrity to enter the villa. Our sphincters, the first series had (in alphabetical order) Calum Best, Fran Cosgrave, Paul Danan, Michael Greco, Lady Isabella Hervey, Du'aine Ladejo, Rebecca Loos, Liz McClarnon, Jayne Middlemiss, Lee Sharpe, Judi Shekoni, and Abi Titmuss, and the second series had Sophie Anderton, Chris Brosnan, Kelle Bryan, Brendan Cole, Alicia Douvall, Bianca Gascoigne, Lady Victoria Hervey, Leo Ihenacho, Shane Lynch, Lee Otway, Colleen Shannon, and a bunch of guests flown in to spice things up including series one's Paul Danan and Jackass star Steve-O (who quit after two days).

The second series was subject to some wonderful criticism from the continuity announcers of UTV (the ITV station in Northern Ireland). Robin Taylor would frequently introduce the show along the line of quotes like: Now get ready for unintentional comedy from the Love Island!, whilst chief announcer Julian Simmons regularly used his announcements to have a go at Sophie 'me-me-me' Anderton.

Voted the Worst New Show in this site's Poll of 2005.

The American version of Love Island was broadcast on ITVBe in September and October 2019, followed almost immediately by the second series of the Australian version. No summer series was produced in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, so ITV2 put out the first Australian series - which, like our version, was filmed in Mallorca - and later that year the second Yankee series. The Cabins went out in January 2021, in the slot previously occupied by the 2020 winter series.

Three episodes of Love Island have been left unaired, or in at least one case unmade. The first, one day of the first celebrity series, was lost after a tropical storm hit the island. Another two from the first winter series, the first of which was an 'unseen bits' episode, was pulled following the death of Caroline Flack; the show returned two days later with a tribute to Flack. In addition, that day's Aftersun was not produced.

Merchandise

Love Island The Game, by Ginger Fox. Probably not one to be played with yer nan.

See also

Weaver's Week reviews: 2006 and 2015

Web links

Current website

2006 website (from archive.org)

Wikipedia entries for original and revival

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