Celebrity Big Brother 2011: Eviction #1 by Stuart Taylor

Hi, it’s Stuart here from the Movie Review section. I haven’t watched Big Brother in about 7 years, including any of this season, but I thought – how difficult can it be? It’s a handful of nobodies in a house – I’ll pick this up in no time.

The show begins with Brian Dowling telling us that the eviction is between ‘Bad Boy’ Bobby (one of the ones I don’t recognise), Squeaky Clean Sally (Bercow) and Kerry Katona. I am saved from not knowing what’s going on, when we are given a highlights reel of the week so far:

The Week So Far

Okay, so apparently at the beginning of the week, Mohammad Al-Fayed turned up, dressed as a Pharaoh for some reason. This isn’t really elaborated on much, except that he announces that Tara is to become an honourary Pharaoh, too. Can he do that? Is this official? The only other thing of note is that Big Brother made Jedward wear spandex bodysuits that electrocute them if they get within 5 feet of each other. This is the best thing I’ve even seen. Or it would be if it didn’t turn out that Jedward have some kind of electrocution fetish and they spend the rest of the day wrestling each other and getting off on the shocks. Jesus H Allah.

The Task

Luckily, the old memory has managed to recall that Big Brother inmates are required to complete a task in order to boost their shopping budget for the following week. This week the task appears to be ‘random Wizard of Oz shit’. As far as I can follow, everybody has to remain dressed as a particular character from Baum’s literary classic while achieving certain goal set out for them. For example, the three potential evictees are all dressed as Dorothy, and they have to stick to a rule, whereby at least one Dorothy has to stand on a yellow brick road in the garden at all times. They spend days taking shifts on the road, not realising that Kerry blew the whole thing within 5 minutes of the start, when she left the road to grab her fags.

The Tin Man (some guy I don’t know. I think he’s the paparazzo guy?) had to prove he had a heart. The flashback is too quick for me to understand, but I think he did this be eating an imaginary dinner. Amy Childs, as the Scarecrow, had to prove she had a brain: she achieves this by being crucified in the garden (the flashbacks really aren’t clear). Luckily we get to see the Lion’s task in full – she (Pamela something) has to prove her courage by playing the old ‘there’s a spike under a polystyrene cup, slam your hand down on it’ trick. she’s clearly seen this trick before – she doesn’t even bat an eye, even when the magician screams in her face (Note: this may be a side effect of botox).

The other guys (i.e. Team Jedward + Tara Reid) had to do some other shit, and they failed at it.

What Else Happened in the House

As is tradition, Eviction Night fills us in on most of the Thursday/Friday action.

Amy Childs sleeps. A lot. Apparently she’s just asleep all the time. She’s a lot more watchable than in The Only Way is Essex, mind. This is the worst possible week for me to come into this blind, because they’re all in god damn costumes. I’m assuming they constantly flash up the contestants names because they are dresses as Oz characters, and not because they are D-List nobodies.

Amy Childs proves she might have to take a retest on the whole ‘does she have a brain’ task, by asking if a mixture of water and vodka gets you pissed. She has to be convinced that vodka and water has the same alcohol content as vodka and coke. Sigh. I love Sally Bercow. She seems to be pretty cool with the whole thing, though she looks completely baffled by the conversations. I’m also enjoying Jedward a surprising amount. They annoy the shit out of me in any other context, but here everyone else is so dull that they are a wonderfully wacky juxtaposition. I forgot that 90% of Big Brother consists of people lying on a sofa/lawn talking shit. Jedward just cause mayhem like frantically chopping carrots while singing (for no reason, they aren’t preparing dinner), pressing the beeping-buttons on the exercise equipment to make a dance anthem and stealing all of Sally Bercow’s shampoo to… do their hair.

I think it was two or three years ago that we reached ‘Reality TV  & Celebrity TV saturation point’. This is the point at which reality shows and celebrity shows just pass the same people around between their shows. All the celebrity shows have reality TV people on them, and the reality shows have celebrities on them – most of which became famous on reality shows. It probably gives real celebrities a moment of peace, come to think of it.

Do you think they tried to get Suri Cruise on Celebrity Big Brother?

At some point in the afternoon, everyone except Jeward is asleep. So, Jedward squirt shaving cream all over their hands, run out into the garden and attack Bobby with it. It’s delightfully homoerotic, the white stuff splurting everywhere as the three men wrestle in munchkin and Dorothy outfits. It ends when Jedward ask Bobby to shave them. No, I’m not joking. They don’t know how to shave, so they want Bobby to shave them.

The Party

Big Brother throws the celebrities a party, for … well, they didn’t really pass the task. They completed it. Music is played, alcohol is drunk, dancing ensues. This reminds me – wasn’t this Big Brother meant to be full of naked sex romps? I was promised romps, wasn’t I, Daily Star? Where are my romps?

Oh wait, a romp might be brewing. Tara Reid is teaching… some guy, and Kerry and Amy Childs how to dance – more specifically, how to seduce through dance. She shakes her hips. She says, ‘it’s all in the eyes’. Wow, Tara Reid has tiny eyes. I’d never noticed until she mentioned it. Tiny, tiny eyes. Amy Childs has massive eyes. They are all just staring at each other, furiously, shaking their hips. This is freaking me out. Kerry goes to the diary room to review the situation:

Tara knows how to get all the guys. She says you need to get them with the eyes. I just rugby tackle men. Hence, why I’m single.

The Eviction

Tara and Kerry discuss who they think will leave. Tara offers Kerry reassuring advice:

I have great instinct. If I have any instinct, I promise you… I can’t promise you, but I’ve got instinct.

Yeah, thanks Tara.

Anyway, suspension over – Sally Bercow has been evicted. This is a shame. I like her, and she said she didn’t want to go first because she didn’t want all the people who pissed all over her going into the house to say ‘I told you so’. These people are basically The Daily Mail and any chauvinist wankers that think it wasn’t ‘befitting of a speaker’s wife’. I mean, yeah, going on BB is a stupid idea, but you should avoid going in for the right reasons! Anyway, she raised 100k for charity, so good for her.

Her highlights include her making friends with some guy called Paddy. I don’t know who this guy is, but he can’t seem to speak with consonants! Who the hell is he? He’s amazing! Can you imagine him on Countdown?

The final thing I want to mention is that on C5 Big Brother, the hotlines are for saving people, not evicting them. Is this a ploy to get more phoneline money? Would it get more phone line money?

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