I’ll Get This (Tuesday, 10pm, BBC2) is the sort of programme that sends you scurrying to Wikipedia to try to discover the genesis of the format. You’ll find yourself wondering if it started life as a Norwegian series called Compete to Pay, or maybe a North Korean show titled Performing for Nourishment. Perhaps you’d be able to trace it back to Slovakian daytime institution I Eat Your Wallet. It definitely has the well-worn air of something that’s been round the block a bit.
And yet it turns out that I’ll Get This is a true British original. It has no host and no audience, just five semi-famous people eating dinner together. Which sounds great in principle, because there is no better way to discover someone’s true personality than by seeing how they act in a restaurant. If that were all there was to I’ll Get This – if it were purely a programme where we could collectively judge Anthea Turner for being snippy to a waitress, or Jason Manford for whining that he didn’t have a starter when it came to splitting the bill – it would be utterly compelling.
Unfortunately, that’s not what the format of I’ll Get This is. Instead, the diners – in the case of episode one Carol Vorderman, Anton Du Beke, Ed Gamble, Ellie Taylor and Rylan Clark-Neal – have to put their credit cards into the centre of the table and then participate in games to win them back. Whoever’s card is left at the end has to pay for everyone’s dinner. It’s a panel game, ultimately, except one that hinges on the slightly bonkers assumption that anyone would be remotely interested in watching Anton Du Beke eat a plate of turbot.
The games, for the main, are shamelessly derived from other popular shows. One’s a bit Would I Lie to You. One’s a bit Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. One is Jimmy Kimmel’s Mean Tweets in all but name. One – and I have to confess that this was the moment when my will to live shot out of my body like a bloody rocket – is firmly indebted to Shane Richie’s shortlived Sky karaoke gameshow Don’t Forget the Lyrics.
Make no mistake, I’ll Get This is no Come Dine With Me. There’s no real sense of competition, no barely contained resentments here. Everyone is determined to have a wonderful time at all costs, which means the half-hour passes in a thick fog of forced chumminess.
You still get the odd surprise here and there – I could write a thesis on why Rylan is the most consistently underestimated personality on television today – but for the most part there’s absolutely nothing to hold the attention. You’re watching people more famous than you eat food more expensive than you can afford, and that’s the extent of it.
It might be worth persevering with, though. The introductory sizzle reel promises that a future episode will include an appearance by Richard Madeley, which may very well end up being the closest that British television has ever come to letting a concussed goat run around inside a restaurant. But that alone probably isn’t enough to sustain an entire series of this muted smuggery. Call me dour, but I’ll wait for the North Korean version.
