Infested waters is only kept afloat by Helen George – erotic brush with stingray could help get her land huge TV deal

The Sun

5 days ago

AT the risk of raining on ITV's latest celebrity parade, do you think this newspaper would've ­mentioned his death if Sir Lenny Henry had been eaten by a shark?
I do.
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It would've taken a heroic level of restraint not to do it under the headline 'Lenny Henry in pieces' as well.
My point being, expectations should be well and truly ­managed before clicking on Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters where, in honour of Jaws' 50th anniversary, some reasonably famous people are forced to 'confront their fears' and 'step out of their comfort zones' while having to cope with the very real trauma of coming face-to-face with scuba diving instructors in the Bahamas.
It's a hell of an ordeal for Lenny and the gang, as you can imagine.
All but sunk
Just in case the seven ever forget the point, though, they're joined by a trio of marine experts to ram home the environmental message and explain the celebs have 'nothing to fear from one of the most persecuted animals on the planet'.
A fine sentiment that's only slightly undermined by the fact one of the team, Australian Navy para Paul de Gelder, has a prosthetic arm and leg, on account of the real ones being eaten by a bull shark in Sydney Harbour.
As remote as the chances of this dismembering ever being repeated on Celebrity Infested Waters were, any possibility of it being a spectacle vanished with the line-up, which really should've been headed by an apex political predator like Boris or Alastair Campbell.
Aside from getting the health and safety team drunk while you tampered with the shark cage, all you would then have needed to do was sign up some professional irritants, like Nish Kumar, Gemma Collins and the drumming Welsh weatherman, before filling the final crucial spot — for teeth-related reasons — with Rob Beckett.
One of the sharks attempts to attack Rob Beckett? It's funny. One of the sharks attempts to mate with Rob Beckett? It's even funnier.
Instead, the show was all but sunk when ITV went for worthy and likeable characters who include: Dougie Poynter, from McFly, Ross Noble, Ade Adepitan, actress Lucy Punch and Countdown's Rachel Riley.
Lenny's there as well, obviously, still trying his best, bless him.
Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters
All hopes the other six ever had about hogging the camera, though, were dashed with the booking of Call The Midwife 's Helen George, who announced her arrival right at the start of episode one when team leader Dr Tristan Guttridge told them: 'You're meeting bull sharks today.'
'Sharks? Today? In the water?'
No, back in the Coconut Lounge at the hotel.
Where the hell do you think you're going to meet them?
From that moment onwards, it effectively became The Helen George Show.
An actress so traumatised by a childhood swimming pool incident, involving rubber floats, that she cannot put her head under water or even look at it without giving us her full Meryl Streep routine from Sophie's Choice.
Mind you, it was a slightly different performance we got when a stingray nuzzled her crotch in the shallows off Bimini island.
'Oh my God, it's gone right for my vagina!
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'Ooh! Sucky sucky,' she groaned, before admitting afterwards: 'I've never been tickled by a stingray before. It was quite pleasant.'
If I had to guess, of course, I'd say what's really going on here is that Helen's using her rather lovely Bahaman holiday as an audition for ITV's jungle, as she keeps shouting ' Get me out! ' every time she's in the water.
I'm vaguely glad she's there as well, because Celebrity Infested Waters would be an even flatter experience without her histrionics.
What all the screaming in the world cannot do, though, is add any sort of point to Celebrity Infested Waters or take away from the stupidity of the exercise.
Cupping goolies
Because the really mind-blowing thing about this format is that ITV tried exactly the same thing in 2005, to mark the 30th anniversary of Jaws, with a one-off show called Celebrity Shark Bait, featuring Ruby Wax, Richard E Grant and Colin Jackson.
And none of them had the decency to get eaten either.
Now here we are, 20 years later, with a five-part series and Dougie Poynter from McFly cupping his goolies as he waded cautiously into the ocean asking: 'Are my testicles safe?'
From the sharks? 100 per cent.
From Helen? 50/50.
LIGHTNING, Zoe Lyons: 'In which ­classic board game are the Hippopotamus Defence and Queen's Gambit opening moves?'
Shui: 'Cluedo.'
Zoe Lyons: 'A revolving pole with red and white stripes on it is often used to identify what place of business?'
Rebecca: 'Fire station.'
And Zoe Lyons: 'What type of ­raincoat is named after the Scottish chemist who invented the material it was first made from?'
Craig: 'Anorak.'
Aye, good old Charlie Anorak. One of the greats.
RE: ITV's women's Euros 2025 pundit Eni Aluko: 'I struggle with questioning goalkeepers.'
Then kindly p*** off. It's your job.
BONO'S A LIVE 8 NO-NO
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THE difference between the first two brilliant episodes of BBC2's Live Aid At 40 documentary and the soulless third was as stark as the chasm that existed between the original gig and the 2005 version.
Because the first concert, in 1985, was a beautiful, spontaneous union between the British people and their favourite rock stars, driven by two men, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, who were just trying to make a difference while having some fun.
The terminally pompous Live 8 event, on the other hand, was clearly driven by a politician who longed to be a rock star, Tony Blair, and a rock star who longed to be a politician, Bono, who shared a messiah complex that overwhelmed everyone and everything else. It missed someone capable of filling the impossible void left by Freddie Mercury as well, obviously.
But the most notable absence, in part three, was the public, who just had to sit tight while Blair, Putin, George W Bush and Bono did some sort of behind-closed-doors deal about Third World debt, and remain polite while Live 8 cretins like Miss Dynamite told them: 'As a nation we've robbed, killed, stolen and violated the Third World for centuries. If there's a debt to be paid, we're the ones that owe.'
A version of events which is a bit hard to stomach when Britain was the first country in the whole history of humanity not just to ban the international slave trade but police it as well.
She certainly set the self-loathing tone for a lot of large concerts that followed, though, and probably helped ensure one of Live Aid's main legacies is the constant background drone of celebrity sermonizing we must all now endure.
And as for Africa?
Yeah, it's still screwed.
RANDOM TV IRRITATIONS
Good Morning Britain imbeciles ­captioning a famous 1980s toy as the: 'Rubix cube'.
BBC1's normally superb Gabby Logan turning into a seven-year-old child with the observation: 'Two more sleeps until the Wales- England game.'
And Wimbledon commentators getting a throb on for the tournament's celebrity ­flotsam.
A practice which should've ended long before Andrew Castle debased himself with the words: 'A lovely royal box there.
'That was Nick Clegg, our former ­Deputy Prime ­Minister.'
LOOKALIKE OF THE WEEK
THIS week's winner is 'Human Barbie Doll' Alicia Amira, off ITV2's Price Of ­Perfection, and the Test Card clown.
Sent in by Ewen Davidson, of Hoddesdon, Herts.
WITH all of its sly talk about 'diversity,' 'climate change,' and 'migration,' BBC2's anthropological series Human was already giving me the uneasy feeling it was using the past to spread ­propaganda about the present.
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Then host Ella Al-Shamahi, right, said: 'Six million years before Homo sapiens appeared, some primates left the trees, they started walking upright and began using stone tools. These tool-makers became . . .'
Click.
Bloody Keir Starmer.
TV GOLD
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CHANNEL 4 's reliably brilliant 24 Hours In Police Custody: Lost Boys.
Sky Documentaries' over-long but incredibly touching Jayne Mansfield tribute My Mom Jayne.
BBC2's Live Aid at 40 concert footage confirming Queen's show-stopping performance was every bit as mesmerising as the legend ­suggests.
And Noel Edmonds going 'full Brent' on the final episode of ITV's Kiwi Adventure, where he invited the Prime Minister of New Zealand to dinner (he was 'busy'), ­speculated that he may have been a dolphin in a previous life and then assured his wife Liz, while sat in a hot tub, that she was 'one of the three most important things' in his life, ahead of 'helicopters and topiary'.
You spoil that woman, Noel.