Beat the Star, not just Chris Brown’s favourite pass-time, but also a ridiculous game-show from ITV.

Think of it as half-celebrity Krypton Factor. Not necessarily the Z-list celebrities that usually show up on anything with a ‘Celebrity’ twist, but one contestant is a celebrity, and the other… less so.

Tonight we meet a bloke called Glenn, who hasn’t done anything of note in his pathetic life.  He’s up against England rugby legend (they have legends in rugby, apparently) Austin Healey, who, awesomely, shares his name with a car.  It’s like Mr. and Mrs. Focus calling their son Ford, or the Cooper family having a girl called Mini. What were they thinking?

Vernon “£3k cheaper than Peter” Kay is in full parody mode as he presents, managing to hilariously lampoon other cheesy hosts, while punctuating every sentence with an over the top cheeky wink and a flash of his whiter-than-white teeth.

Eight rounds of pointless competition follow, starting with climbing-the-inside-of-a-perspex-pipe.  Followed by driving-a-dirt-buggy, which civilian Glenn can’t cope with, ploughing into a tunnel like a modern day Princess Diana. Austin takes the piss out of the production team brilliantly, deliberately incurring a five-second penalty for not bothering with a 360 spin round a pole – and still coming away with his fastest lap.

Holding up the HIGH OCTANE pace of the show, on to spelling-words-backwards.  E-K-I-B.  F-R-A-C-S. noisivelet suoidet yletulosbA. Next, from the low-budget Saturday night school of parlour games, it’s cutting-a-sausage, which Vernon enjoys with saying sausage in a way that makes it clear he’s talking about a knob, which means he wants to cut his own willy off or something.

Eight thrilling, exciting rounds later (including standing-on-a-pole and throwing-a-basketball), Glenn manages to balls up a 14-1 lead, to lose 14-22.

Beat the Star is like an ITV executive watched a 30-year-old Generation Game tape, decided to ramp up the cheesiness by getting Vernon Kay to grin his way through the recording and slashed the budget. Seven cheap and easy rounds and an ATV race, all filmed in front of a gurning crowd of morons high on E numbers, make it the ultimate ITV show: Cheap, shit and featuring a celebrity.

Later in the series: Marvel as Dean Gaffney tries to fit as many mini babybels in his mouth as he can, Toadie from Neighbours makes a domino rally, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor climbs a ladder.

You know who wrote this? Nik Johnson from Shouting At Cows, that’s who. Thank him later.

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