Channel 4
It’s fashionable to start any assessment of Celebrity Big Brother with the phrase "the usual procession of Z-list celebs" and snark about how there aren’t any real celebrities. It started off as ‘D-list celebs’ but ever mindful of the need for exaggeration, hacks have steadily worked their way down the alphabet and are now struggling for new ways to describe those who achieved minor notoriety through dubious means.
"My personal favourite is nano-celebrity. Please feel free to steal it if you’re a fuck faced turd with no imagination."
My personal favourite is nano-celebrity. Please feel free to steal it if you’re a fuck faced turd with no imagination who starts his Big Brother reviews this way.
Anyway, "the usual procession of nano-celebs" have made the walk of shame into the Big Brother house. Quite a combustible mix from Endemol, well aware of the need to prove themselves superior to I’m A Celebrity who recently finished a fairly tepid run in the jungle enlivened only by Sheree Murphy’s hilarious revelations about husband Harry Kewell.
“Michael Barrymore… Pathologically insecure clinically depressed sack of shit.”
The series line-up starts, appropriately enough, with somebody who really isn’t a celebrity.
Chantelle – made the journey from nobody to celebrity in a matter of days. She will be making the return journey in half that time.
Michael Barrymore – tortured comic ‘genius’, world’s worst pool attendant and non-murderer. Is mumbling incoherently like a Valium blitzed whore to the Diary room as if it were his psychotherapist, the self-pitying fraud. Pathologically insecure clinically depressed sack of shit
Pete Burns – preposterous botox addled freak-show. Is currently suing his plastic surgeon for pus spewing out of his lips after one of his many cosmetic alterations.
Maggot – Goldie Looking Chain rapper who comes across as the regular guy for this series. Quickly received Aerial Telly’s endorsement to win.
"Rula Lenska – ancient icon of that old oxymoron 1980s sophistication."
Rula Lenska – ancient icon of that old oxymoron 1980s sophistication. Walks and talks with the air of an émigré Austrian Countess. She seems to be one of those contestants who arrive every year in the Celebrity Big Brother experience purely to moan and state her remarkable insights such as "I think some people are playing to the camera" like in every other Big Brother series they were all sitting around discussing Proust.
Jodie Marsh – fame hungry glamour half-wit who seeks to avoid fame. The conflict is strong in this one. Afflicted by a profound social autism she realises she is unpopular but has absolutely no clue why – even when everybody tells her why. Induces pity and contempt in equal measure.
Dennis Rodman – Walking tripod and NBA Hall of Famer, he stalks the house like a rutting stag in mating season. Prepostorous.
Traci Bingham: perma-smiling former Baywatch babe with her best years behind her – Traci is always on hand with a fortune cookie platitude delivered with all the sincerity of a timeshare salesman who hasn’t reached his quotas this month.
“Faria Alam… a totally worthless cocksucker of no import whatso.”
Faria Alam – The Football Association office bike and kiss-and-tell queen who has confessed to urinating in an ex-boyfriend’s tea. Much speculation ensued as to which England game this was before. Could Sven’s tactical ineptitude be put down to a urinary yeast infection? Pariah is a totally worthless cocksucker of no import whatso.
Preston – member of the (very) Ordinary Boys who’s tattoos seem a little incongruous. Being a member of an utterly hopeless gaggle of indiescum hasn’t yet checked his rise to national notoriety.
George Galloway – chairman of the hilariously titled Respect party, shameless self-publicist and confidant of murderous dictator. Not popular in Casa Aerial.
Pete Burns is possibly the most offensive freak that ever lived. He has co-ordinated a bullying campaign against Jodie and Chantelle with his sidekicks Barrymore and Galloway. I hope his lips split open again and he drowns in his own pus the horrible horrible get.
Batty old witch Germaine Greer agrees with Aerial Telly on the bullying situation though let’s not kid ourselves about her reasons for leaving their house last time around – she was being subtly pushed out of the kitchen by the domestically superior Brigitte Nielsen. And dames don’t like that.
Big Brother is a lot more playful these days and his cruelty has a really creative edge which shows the humanity behind the programme. Big Brother is no longer a rigid inflexible monolith, rather a projection of our hopes and fears.
Just like the God he always thought he was.
The best thing about it: Watching Barrymore’s 19th nervous breakdown
The worst thing about it: Pete Burns constantly showing his fucking arse.
The verdict on Celebrity Big Brother 2006 : Grotesque yet unmissable.
Marks out of 10: 8