For anyone who’d been enjoying watching ITV’s Gordon, Gino & Fred on Thursday nights at 9pm, there was a familiar sight in that time slot on Channel 4 last night.
A well-built, dark-haired guy was standing butt-naked by the waterside with his back to the camera.
Incredibly though, for once it wasn’t everyone’s favourite wine expert/aspiring nudist Fred Sirieix. It was a hotel guest posing for a life-drawing class.
Instead Fred was suited and booted for his day job – running the best dating show on TV that isn’t called The Undateables.
With this hotel-based branch of the First Dates franchise returning for its sixth series in three years, it’s a wonder Fred ever found the time to go gallivanting with Ramsay and D’Acampo.
Then again, I doubt this is the most taxing job he’s ever had.
All he ever seems to do is stand by a restaurant door telling women they are beautiful and asking men how much they can bench press.
He does it beautifully though. And this show does its job equally well.
When it first began in 2017, I didn’t fancy its chances of long term success.
Then – around the same time it moved to its current base on Italy’s Amalfi coast – it began to charm me.
Now I think it’s one of the sweetest, most uplifting and genuinely moving programmes on television.
I mean, most of the action is clearly set up beforehand before being meticulously spliced together back in the editing suite.
I don’t mind that though. It’s the people looking for love who make the show what it is.
This series opener had a strong cast list, led by one couple who definitely adhered to that unwritten Cilla Black rule that older daters are always more entertaining.
75-year-old Alexandria, whom the voiceover guy diplomatically described as “a seasoned jetsetter”, arrived with the words “Sean Connery lookalike” at the top of on her wish list.
It turned out she’d once shared a dinner with Connery – and, er, Jimmy Tarbuck – following a golf tournament in Spain in the 80s.
What with Tuesday night’s Beat The Chasers contestant Anna revealing her dates with Eddie the Eagle, it’s been quite a week for surprising celebrity/punter interactions.
Anyway, Alexandria got her wish – kind of – when sixty-nine-year-old Geoff turned up.
He certainly had the look of an older Connery about him, although there was a fair amount of Simon Callow from Four Weddings And A Funeral in there too.
Needless to say, Alexandria and Geoff got on like a house on fire.
The following morning in the hotel lobby Geoff even proved that many a good tune can still be played on an old horn.
To clarify, Geoff had brought his trumpet with him to Italy and he was simply serenading Alexandria with an impromptu solo.
Sadly, the closing credits informed us Alexandria was still waiting for an encore.
The signs were more promising elsewhere in the restaurant.
Plymouth businessman Dick – no need for any jokes, Channel 4 did them all already – was matched with a marine conservationist from Cornwall called Clare.
Despite working extensively in the preservation of lobsters, Clare happily ordered one for her main course.
Whether this was a subtle warning to Dick that she’s not a lady to be messed with remains to be seen.
Either way, Clare was good value when it came to lobster facts such as “The bigger the lobster, the more females it gets.”
Really, Clare? I’d always assumed that was just a rumour.
