Blind Date (Channel 5) is by no means the first dating show to aim Cupid’s bow at bisexual people. Courtney Act’s The Bi Life took a group of hot young bi people to Barcelona for the summer, and it can seem as though every other participant in Naked Attraction professes not to judge people by their gender (although they are happy to knock someone back on the basis of “weird knees”). But Blind Date, the grande dame of TV romance, has waited until now to try bi. “This is the original dating show, this is, so nobody shows their bits or anything like that,” Paul O’Grady announces at the start. Whether he does so by way of apology or explanation is not clear.
This is increasingly unusual. Dating shows have grown and morphed into inhibition-free beasts that would have made Cilla Black blush crimson. For every chaste First Dates, there is The Sex Clinic or Sex Tape, where everyone shows their bits, then talks about their bits at length.
There is something quaint, therefore, about Blind Date finally having its first bi contestant – and O’Grady’s baffled nana approach only adds to the befuddled mood.
There is a wait, though, until the main event: we start with straight contestants. Aaron from Newport, whose shirt is stretching under the effort of containing his pecs, must choose between three women: Sian from Hastings, who is a part-time underwear model; Josephine from London, who speaks to her dad 20 times a day and tells her mum when she has a one-night stand; and Sharelle from Norwich, who earned the nickname “Spuddy” because she once put 17 roast potatoes in her mouth. You may be able to guess the smutty place to where that last anecdote takes us and whom Aaron eventually chooses.
But it is round two that we stayed in on a Sunday night to see. “We’ve never had a lineup like this before,” says O’Grady, introducing the panel of bi contestants, who are sifted through and eventually whittled down to one by another bi person. “Who do you usually go for?” he asks Lily from Basingstoke, whose hair resembles a cupcake. “Well, you’re bisexual, aren’t yer?” he adds, as though that is an answer.
The novelty of seeing a mixed-gender panel is funny only because it is such a non-novelty. The two women – Lily, plus Zoe from Birmingham – have similar interests: big boobs on women, gym bods on men (come back, Aaron from round one). Jesse, an earnest young man from Truro, likes blue eyes on women and a nice smile on men. He keeps complaining that Cornwall is full of retired people whom he doesn’t fancy. “You do realise there’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle,” O’Grady protests.
It is a man called Jordan who gets to choose. The second he appears in a tight, red, glittery suit and Noddy Holder fringe, I have an inkling that the women may not have found the Tom Hardy they had imagined. Still, it is their loss that Jordan picks Jesse – he seems funny and sweet. This time, the chosen couple head off to St Lucia. If this were the 90s, they would have won a holiday to Loughborough, so progress has been made in many respects.
As is the way with Blind Date, whether they were a perfect match or not remains to be seen next week, when they get to go over their trip in excruciating detail. It is by far the best part of the show. Carlos and Ailsa, who met last week, were taken to Monaco. Ailsa seemed overwhelmed by Carlos’s passion when the screen was pulled back, partly because he attached himself to her and wouldn’t let go. Any hopes of a romantic connection were slim.
And yet there is magic in the air. Ailsa is a nervous woman, who prefers the safety of her own bubble, she says, and was wary of being driven by Carlos, of going on a helicopter trip, of eating Thai food. At every turn, his enthusiasm for new experiences proved contagious and he coaxed her out of her shell, with more sweetness and affection than I have seen on Blind Date in a long time. By the end, even O’Grady has started to well up. That this, not the novelty of a panel of men and women, was the highlight of the show is a truly wonderful thing.
