Gladiators, Dancing on Ice and Winterwatch: TV highlights this week

Gladiators (Saturday 13/01/24, BBC1, 5.50pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

A lot of viewers have fond memories of gathering around the TV with their family during the 1990s to watch Gladiators. However, Bradley and Barney Walsh have more reason that most to feel nostalgic about the show, which saw members of the public take on a fearsome line-up of athletes in tests of strength and speed.

Bradley’s wife Donna was a choreographer for the show’s cheerleaders, so he spent a lot of time on the set, and even took part in a celebrity special in 1997. To make it more of a family affair, their son Barney took some of his first steps on the arena floor.

So, it’s unsurprising that Bradley and Barney are excited to be returning as the show makes a comeback on BBC1 – and this time, they are co-presenters.

Bradley says: “Wow! I can’t believe that I’ve been asked to be part of this iconic show. I used to sit backstage, or in the audience, every week watching my wife be part of this juggernaut and now I get to co-host a new version of Gladiators. Saturday night family entertainment at its best…”

They aren’t the only ones who are thrilled to be part of the revived format. Gladiator fans will remember that in the 1990s, John Anderson had the job of refereeing – and shouting “Contender ready! Gladiator ready!” before the events.

Now, that role is being taken by ex-Premier League Football Mark Clattenburg.

He says: “It’s amazing. When you look back to when it first started in the 90s, Gladiators was so iconic and wherever you go in the world, people have heard of Gladiators. Growing up, I used to sit and watch every show. John Anderson the original referee was so legendary.

“For me, it’s such an honour and such a privilege to now in 2023 to now be part of Gladiators. To be named referee after John Anderson is such an honour. Even though I’ve refereed some of the biggest games in the world – this is one the most amazing things I will do in my life.”

The Gladiators he’ll be overseeing are Fire, Bionic, Diamond, Nitro, Electro, Giant, Steel, Apollo, Comet, Viper, Athena, Fury, Phantom, Sabre and Dynamite.

Although some of them may seem a little young to have fond memories of the original UK version, they are all excited to have been given their uniforms – and nicknames.

Zack George says: “I was inspired by the Gladiators as a child, but never imagined I’d be physically fit enough to be considered a ‘superhuman’! I hope a new generation of fans will look up to me as their new strong, unbreakable hero, Steel.”

Tonight, we’ll get to find out just how unbreakable these heroes really are as they take on their first batch of contenders. Legend will be taking part in Hang tough, Sabre gets her claws out in The Ring and contenders feel Viper’s venom on the Collision Bridge.

It’s all leading up to the infamous Eliminator, where a place in the quarter-finals is up for grabs.

Dancing on Ice (Sunday 14/01/23, ITV1, 6.30pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

Normally, when Dancing on Ice skates on to our screens, most of the speculation focuses on which celebrities will be taking part and whether they will manage to remain upright.

However, this year there has been more press interest in who will be hosting the show, specifically whether Holly Willoughby would return after she stepped down from This Morning in October – and if she did, who would be taking over from her former co-presenter Phillip Schofield.

Then last month, ITV1 put an end to the rumours by confirmed that Holly would be back, and that she’d be joined by her old mate Stephen Mulhern, who she first worked with on the kids’ show Ministry of Mayhem 20 years ago.

So, now that’s sorted we can instead concentrate on this year’s line-up of celebrity skaters, which is slightly different to the one initially released by ITV1.

As a reminder of just how risky the skating competition can be, one contestant, Goggleboxer Stephen Lustig-Webb, has already had to withdraw after sustaining an injury during training.

Luckily, ski jumper Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards was waiting in the wings as a replacement. He says: “It’s bittersweet as whilst I’m delighted to be taking part in the new series I’m gutted for Stephen and wish him a speedy recovery. Dancing on Ice is a show I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a challenge I think I’m going to relish!”

He’s not the only former Olympian taking part this year. Long jumper Greg Rutherford has also signed up and while he does have some previous form when it comes to busting a move – he competed on Strictly Come Dancing in 2016 – he thinks getting his skates on will be a whole new experience.

He told Good Morning Britain: “My kids love dancing around so hopefully they are going to enjoy watching me dance with blades on my feet! I think this is going to be a really different experience but one that will be quite exciting.

“I like a challenge and I needed a reason to go out and do stuff again and here we are. I want to perform something that’s never been done before, that’s my aim. I’ll go 100,000 per cent on this. I’ll try hard, I’m in no way expecting to be good but I will work as hard as I can.”

His competition includes boxer Ricky Hatton MBE, actress Claire Sweeney, actress and singer Hannah Spearritt, West End star Amber Davies, TV personality Miles Nazaire, comedian and writer Lou Sanders, actor Ricky Norwood, broadcaster and DJ Adele Roberts, actor Ryan Thomas and Emmerdale’s Roxy Shahidi.

Tonight, we’ll get our first chance to assess their form as six of the celebs take to the rink for the first time. But who will impress returning judges Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, Ashley Banjo and Oti Mabuse, and who will find themselves on thin ice with the voting public?

Love Island: All Stars (Monday 15/01/24, ITV1, 9pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

When it was announced that the reality show Love Island was making a comeback in 2015, many cynical viewers may have wondered why. After all, the original version, which ran for two series between 2005 and 2006 and featured celebrities looking for love, hadn’t exactly been a runaway ratings success.

However, it turned out that the bosses of ITV2 knew what they were doing. The revamped version, which now saw largely unknown singletons coupling up in a villa in the sun, captured the viewers’ imagination in a way that the first incarnation never quite managed, eventually becoming the most watched show in the channel’s history.

Perhaps even more impressively, in 2020 it was the most watched show between 16- to 34-year-olds, a demographic that had been largely turning away from traditional TV.

That success hasn’t come without controversy. The tragic deaths of former contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis and host Caroline Flack led some to call for the show to be cancelled.

In response, the producers introduced new duty of care protocols, and Love Island has continued, first with presenter Laura Whitmore and then Maya Jama.

In fact, it’s been on air so long and featured so many memorable contestants that we’re now being treated to an All Star version.

Paul Mortimer, Director of Reality Commissioning & Acquisitions and Controller, ITV2, ItvBe said: “After 10 ratings busting seasons of Love Island on ITV2, we’re delighted to be able to celebrate a decade of the number one dating show on television with the first ever series of Love Island: All Stars.

“Set in our luxurious South African villa, I know the audience will welcome back some of the most iconic UK Islanders, as they set out in pursuit of love all over again in a brand new version of our worldwide hit.”

Maya is once against on hosting duties, and will be offering the Islanders a shoulder to cry on as they get a second shot at love, but the question remains – which All Stars are packing their swimming costumes to come back?

Fan favourite Maura Higgins appeared to rule herself out on Instagram Live, saying: “I feel like I’ve done it once and I think once is enough and I’m a bit old for that. I feel like I’m really enjoying what I’m doing… I just don’t really want to go backwards, I want to look forward.

“Like, not saying anything bad about people that would do it again, but each to their own.”

Names that have been bandied around in media though include Georgia Steel, Ovie Soko and Paige Thorne.

Now it’s time to find out if the rumours are true as the villa opens its doors to the new line-up of familiar faces. Will any sparks fly in the opening episode, or will it be a case of once bitten, twice shy for some of the contestants?

If this first episode, which is also airing on ITV2, has you hooked, then you can follow the rest of the action on ITV2.

Winterwatch (Tuesday 16/01/24, BBC Two, 8pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

It’s time to banish those winter blues and embrace the season’s beauty instead.

Thankfully, the Beeb is helping us do so by launching a new four-part series of Winterwatch, which is being broadcast from Tuesday until Friday from RSPB Arne in Dorset, the UK’s first Super National Nature Reserve.

“There’s always this lingering misconception that winter is a time of death and decay, where everything has hibernated or migrated, and it couldn’t be further from the truth, there’s always an enormous amount of activity,” says Chris Packham, who once again leads the presenting team. “Practically, there are no leaves on the trees. It makes it easier to see some species. We get an enormous influx of waders and waterfowl from further north in Europe. Poole Harbour, Brownsea Lagoon, and the estuary areas around Arne itself will be filled full of those migrant birds.

“We probably won’t see some species which 20 years ago, 30, 40 years ago would have been quite common in that area because it would have been much colder further north in Europe, but it isn’t this year. So that will that will have an impact. So we’ll be able to discuss that as well.”

Packham is joined on screen by Michaela Strachan and Iolo Williams, while Gillian Burke reports from the opposite end of the British Isles – she’s in Orkney, which is closer to the Arctic Circle than it is to London. She’s keen to showcase the wildlife that makes its home there.

“The archipelago sitting at the top of Scotland is one of the UK’s best wildlife spots where spotting birds of prey, seals, dolphins, whales, the marine megafauna, is an everyday occurrence,” she remarks.

Williams, meanwhile, is simply happy to be back at Arne, somewhere the show hasn’t been since 2017: “We can look forward to seeing Arne at its brilliant best. Winter in and around Arne is a fantastic time. Some of the summer highlights are not there, the nightjars have gone back down to Africa. A lot of the reptiles will have disappeared underground into hibernation.

“But the shallow lagoons and the harbour there just comes into its own now because it’ll be alive with thousands of waders and wildfowl. And that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing more than anything else.”

But for Strachan, being in the Great Outdoors offers a little escapism from the various traumas and atrocities currently happening around the world.

“I hope Winterwatch will bring people some joy, a programme to look forward to,” she reveals. “Of course the natural world is suffering hugely, but hopefully we can showcase the beauty of winter, celebrate our wildlife, soak up the extraordinary survival techniques of the natural world and in some ways learn from it.

“We always hope to inspire and to bring some warmth and humour to people’s living rooms!”

Whatever your own reasons are for tuning in, it sounds as if you’re bound to find something to your liking that will warm the cockles of your heart – and that’s always welcome during these chilly months.

Finders Keepers (Wednesday 17/01/23, Channel 5, 9pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

If someone said the word ‘detectorist’ to you, what would immediately spring to mind?

Probably the sublime BBC sitcom written by and starring Mackenzie Crook alongside Toby Jones and Rachael Stirling. And rightfully so – the adventures of Andy, Lance and their comrades at the Danebury Metal-Detecting Club have become the stuff of comedy legend. But we’re now about to get an altogether different look at the hobby courtesy of Channel 5’s latest crime drama.

The broadcaster was once much-maligned for its output, but that situation has changed in recent years. The decision to stop bankrolling Aussie soap Neighbours has allowed the company to invest in top-quality talent both in front of and behind the camera, resulting in a number of acclaimed series.

The likes of The Drowning, For Her Sins, Lie With Me, Heat and The Inheritance have all proved to be popular mini-series, while the rural period charms of its take on James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small books continue to win fans around the world. Now the bosses at Channel 5 are hoping that Finders Keepers – which was originally entitled The Hoard – can do the same.

Doctor-turned-writer Dan Sefton, whose CV also includes episodes of EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City, as well as the Dawn French vehicle Delicious, the drama Trust Me and the sun-kissed crime series The Mallorca Files, is the brains behind the project; it’s almost as if he’s imagined what Detectorists might be like if it adopted darker storylines rather than laughs and committed his ideas to paper.

The programme also reunites Sefton with Neil Morrissey, with whom he worked on The Good Karma Hospital, which ran for four series until 2022.

Here Morrissey plays Martin, a local history enthusiast and family man based in rural Somerset. He and his wife Anne (played by Fay Ripley) are struggling to make ends meet – not only do they have their disabled son’s residential care costs to find, their daughter Laura (Jessica Rhodes) is planning her wedding to wheeler-dealer Ashley (James Buckley), and they must find the money to help pay for it.

However, the cash may fall into their lap thanks to a metal-detecting expedition designed to create a bond between Martin and Ashley, during which they stumble upon buried treasure from the Saxon period. It’s worth a fortune, and although they’re legally required to declare the find, the pair soon find themselves considering selling it privately via a dodgy mate of Ashley’s. Being on the wrong side of the law isn’t something that sits easily with Martin, however, and he soon begins to feel dangerously out of his depth…

“I’m delighted to be joining this project alongside the wonderful James Buckley and Fay Ripley,” claimed Morrissey shortly before filming began. “Martin is a character that most people will relate to, he’s a normal guy with a relatively happy life. But when he’s suddenly presented with this opportunity of a lifetime, there’s no telling what he might be capable of. I can’t wait to explore just how far he’s willing to go.”

And we’ll probably never look at a detectorist in quite the same way again…

Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We? (Thursday 18/01/24, BBC Two, 9pm)

Words by Richard Jones

When clocks around the world struck midnight on January 1, signalling the start of 2024, many people were full of optimism for what the next 12 months might bring.

However, in light of the global hardships, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, disease and climate change, others were already fearing the worst.

Later this month, the world will find out where the hands of the Doomsday Clock – a marker for the peril our planet could face – will be set.

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a non-profit group founded by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists, to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war.

It was originally set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight being the theoretical point of annihilation and ‘doomsday’ itself.

“When the clock is at midnight, that means there’s been some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that’s wiped out humanity,” explains Rachel Bronson, CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “We never really want to get there and we won’t know it when we do.”

Since its introduction, the Doomsday Clock has since been set backward eight times and forward 17 times, and in 2023 it stood at the closest its ever been – at just 90 seconds to midnight.

The BAS board stated that the war in Ukraine had raised profound questions on how nations interact, as well as an apparent downfall in international conduct.

“Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict – by accident, intention, or miscalculation – is a terrible risk,” it said.

“The war’s effects are not limited to an increase in nuclear danger; they also undermine global efforts to combat climate change,” said the statement.

The other threats mentioned last year included climate change, biological threats and disruptive technologies. A pandemic, the board added, is no longer a once-in-a-lifetime risk.

Panorama’s senior foreign affairs correspondent Jane Corbin has covered the world’s major conflicts and investigated the proliferation of nuclear weapons over the past three decades.

In this in-depth report for This World, the 69-year-old journalist visits the home of Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project in New Mexico which was responsible for the development and testing of the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945.

She then travels to Scotland to reveal the strategy behind Britain’s nuclear deterrent and the Trident nuclear system which they would “consider using only in extreme circumstances of self-defence, including the defence of our NATO allies”.

Finally, Jane speaks to campaigners in Suffolk fighting against a new generation of American weapons they fear will be based on UK soil.

RAF Lakenheath has been controlled by the US Air Force since 1948 and is home to its 48th Fighter Wing, consisting of more than 4,000 military personnel and 1,500 civilians.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) believes the proposed development works there are in preparation for stationing nuclear weapons – another move which could have a negative effect on the metaphorical Doomsday Clock, not to mention the reality of what is happening in the world.

I Literally Just Told You with Jimmy Carr (Friday 19/01/24, Channel 4, 10pm)

Words by Richard Jones

When Jimmy Carr filmed the debut series of I Literally Just Told You back in 2021, he described it as the “best thing I’ve ever done”.

A big call from the 51-year-old comedian who has made a name for himself as not only a hugely popular stand-up, but also as the host of Channel 4 shows 8 Out of 10 Cats and …Does Countdown, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Distraction and Your Face or Mine?

So no wonder Jimmy was keen to return with another run of the game show with a unique twist.

In case you have missed the I Literally Just Told You so far, here is the premise:

to win up to £25,000, contestants have to answer questions that have been written live as the show is being filmed.

These questions can be about absolutely anything that happens during the programme, from celebrity cameos to a comment from resident expert question writers, or even a joke from the host himself.

Four players are whittled down to two before the nerve-wracking final showdown, where the pair go head-to-head answering questions that they’ve chosen for their opponents about what’s just happened in the show.

The answers are all there; can anyone remember them?

“The show has an enormous play-at-home factor which most game shows don’t have,” Jimmy adds.

“Most game shows are binary, you either know the answer or you don’t. All you have to know for this show is what’s just happened, you just have to pay attention, and you can get the whole thing.

“We had real fun with the fact that anything could happen – 15-second celebrity cameos, false ad breaks, you can really mess with people’s minds.

“It felt really exciting as a premise for a show.”

Following the Christmas celebrity special in which AJ Odudu, Ben Shephard, Bill Bailey and Sarah Millican played for their chosen charities, tonight’s edition sees regular members of the public taking up the challenge again.

But does Jimmy think he’d be any good at the game himself?

“I’m used to being on stage and having to remember someone’s name from 15 minutes ago so I can do a call-back to that guy on stage so my memory’s not bad,” he says.

“If you’re a one-liner guy, and I’m a one-liner guy, you need to remember 300 jokes in a row every night, so you work that muscle a lot.

“Random things happen – we’ll show them a film and I’ll say ‘Dave, roll VT’ and then the question ends up being ‘what was the name of the VT operator?’

“It’s tangential, weird, wonderful stuff – we messed around a lot.

“It feels like a really fair, level playing field for everyone playing the game.”

But despite claiming he’d be decent at the game himself, Jimmy does admit that he’s prone to the odd lapse of concentration.

“Well I lost a pair of sunglasses when I was 14,” he says. “That’s the last thing I lost. Oh and hang on, I did forget to pay my taxes for a while.”

That definitely wasn’t the best thing he’s ever done.