The Guess List; Dirty Weekenders in France; Amazing Greys – TV review

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/apr/14/guess-list-dirty-weekenders-france-tv-review

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Say what you like about Rob Brydon – and I certainly plan to – but he hosts a brain-ruining celebrity quiz show with aplomb. Those hours spent remaining cheerful while dining opposite Steve Coogan's wet-weekend-in-Ancoats face on The Trip to Italy are certainly paying dividends.

How bad is The Guess List (BBC1)? It's as likely as Michael McIntyre's chatshow to make it to a second series. It makes Would I Lie to You?, Brydon's other quiz show, seem like a work of shattering genius.

That said, I couldn't look away. "How lovely to be this close to a fox and not worry it's going to sniff round your bins," said Brydon introducing his first celebrity guest, Emilia Fox. "I speak for everybody when I say I loved The Vicar of Dibley," he said, introducing Jennifer Saunders. He went on with similar amiable insults to the other usual suspects (Simon Callow, Louis Smith, James Corden), while they kept their smiles mirthlessly frozen. If there isn't yet a Bafta for best rictus in quiz show adversity, it is only a matter of time.

The idea is, five celebrities come up with a plausible answer to a question, and then two contestants have to decide which, if any of those suggestions, is most plausible. For example: "According to a poll, what should old people do three times a week to help them live longer?" "Tango," said Callow, insanely. "Orgasm," said Corden, sensibly. "Exercise," said Smith, boringly. The answer? Oh come on! It's have sex.

Only one of the contestants seemed to have trouble with The Guess List's concept. Naturally, she won. But then she also told us she'd moved from Birmingham to Australia after watching Wanted Down Under, which is the very definition of madness.

Celebrity input seemed so superfluous that the show could readily have been renamed Pointless Celebrities. Here's my question: "Which of the following collective nouns is the odd one out: A) murder of crows; B) whoop of gorillas; C) busyness of ferrets; D) pointlessness of celebrities?" Answer: D) I want to hear more from the other three.

Say what you like about Richard E Grant (he's terrific as limey beanpole Jasper in Girls, for instance), but everyone's third favourite thespy boomer (after Callow and Blessed) was expendable on Dirty Weekenders in France (Channel 4). This was a portrait of businessmen who buy what the French call le style trash, take it across the Channel, do it up and offload it at eye-watering markups to Notting Hill's many dupes. They call it, euphemistically, upcycling.

What was Grant's role? To do the voiceover and troll genially around French towns, telling us stuff we already know – how cheap three-course menus are and how citron presses can be, as he put it, "pube-straighteningly strong". He also came to France to buy stuff, as he has been doing for the past 25 years. In a secondhand shop, he found a gentleman's cane topped by a tiny Nazi helmet. "That can't be kosher," he said, adding by way of explanation: "They did collaborate." He returned home with a vintage box in which he suggested he might store condoms. At some point Britain will be so choked with French cast-offs that we'll have to work out a way of sending them back. Le contenu des poubelles anglaises, anyone?

From the discard pile of ageism to primetime glory came Angela Rippon, co-host of Amazing Greys (ITV), a programme in which a team of self-styled OMG pensioners challenged twentysomething whippersnappers to compete in a range of tasks.

Could 26-year-old Sal from Newcastle squat half his body weight 20 times faster than the 72-year-old "Biceps from Bucks", Henry Clark? Of course not. Could he identify hits from the past half-century quicker than venerable DJ "Diddy" David Hamilton? Sadly not. What about 28-year-old Duncan from Manchester? Surely he could beat cyclist Derek "Flying Scot" Stewart in a 1,000m pedal sprint? Only when given a 50m start, and then Duncan only won by 10 metres.

At a time when the Treasury treats pensioners so badly that you wouldn't put it past them to deploy G4S goons to terminate bus-pass holders over 60 as part of new cost-saving parameters, how refreshing to see a programme showing that older people rule. Finally – a show that isn't pointless.