Celebrity Juice: Too Juicy for TV
15There's a real stagnant stink surrounding the TV panel show. Have I Got News for you is a tired format now and should have had its plug pulled years ago. The same can be said for Never Mind the Buzzcocks, which has never been the same since host Simon Amstell left. Even the usually entertaining 8 out of 10 Cats suffers from time to time, when there's just nothing that interesting in the news to talk about, so it relies on especially silly pop polls just to fill space.
There's only one bright light left in the dull world of panel shows, and it shines with the vibrancy of an Iceland shop front: Celebrity Juice.
It's a post-modern take on the quiz show, as it doesn't rely on a regular supply of questions and answers. As formats go it's about as loose as the screw knocking around inside the heads of Jedward, who as it happens, also feature regularly on the show.
The only real reason anyone watches the show is for its strawberry-blonde host Keith Lemon (Leigh Francis). Lemon first turned up on our screens in the C4 show Bo' Selecta! alongside a large roster of regular characters including Avid Merrion, the bear, and Craig David. In 2008 he was given his own panel show, Celebrity Juice, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Despite the show having run for three series now, this is actually its first DVD release.
The first thing that should really be mentioned is its misleading title. Anyone expecting hours of sauciness too rude for TV will be bitterly disappointed. Even though the DVD weighs in at an impressive 145 mins, only ten minutes of that is material actually deemed too risqué for telly. What there is a lot of here are the 'best bits' taken from all three series to date. So if you're a fan of the show since the beginning, there isn't anything here that you haven't already seen.
There are a few extras, like unseen footage and outtakes, but again, not as much material as hoped for. In fact the most entertaining thing about the DVD is that Lemon has done an audio commentary, which at the very least is stuff that fans wouldn't have heard before.
If you haven't seen the show, then this is the perfect introduction into the warped world of Keith Lemon. It's a somewhat scary place, heavily scented with the mixed aromas of Lynx Africa and crotch sweat. He's an acquired taste for sure, and will no doubt appeal to those with no taste at all. But that's Keith's perfect demographic, and his lowest common denominator humour is surprisingly appealing.
With little in the way of new material, whether this DVD is for you will depend on how keen you are to see Keith's 'best bits' again. Yes, some of them are genuinely worth seeing again, but the DVD overall just falls short of being proper Bo and not quite juicy enough.