Jump Off

“You must be gutted.” Said Davina to Bradley – sorry – SIR Bradley Wiggins as he explained that a non-weight bearing bone in one of his legs had suffered a minor stable fracture.

“Well, it’s only The Jump.” Said Sir Brad, keeping it very much in mind that he was currently enjoying the sort of complimentary all-inclusive winter break that most of us would have to sell a kidney to experience.

Davina’s earpiece exploded with the sound of voices from the control room shouting various instructions and directions. This coupled with the oompah band and the yodelling must have made her feel as if she had just put her head inside a spin drier full of cutlery and, for a split second, she simply stood with one eye half closed and looked as if she needed a Nurofen. Consummate professional that she is, Davina just laughed that Davina laugh, you know, the one that’s too loud and goes on too long and she puts her face right up against the camera and looks as if blood’s going to start coming out of her eyes. “Ha-ha-haaaa! Whaddaya mean, ‘it’s only The Jump’?” Silence fell.

Bradley clarified, possibly at gunpoint, that whilst he had had the best time of his life, life, let’s face it, goes on and he would wish the other contenders well in the rest of the show and he would love the chance to do it again. Someone, somewhere put the safety catch back on the Walther PPK and the oompah band started up again. Trouble is, the bloody yodelling recommenced and the cow bells started ringing and everybody put their false smiles back on and pretended to be having a right-old apres-skiing good laugh. The only  thing that was missing was Stacey Solomon. Ah, there she is.

Honestly, what is the point of this programme? Unlike the BBC, ITV can cover the cost of anything by selling advertising during their shows so, largely, they can do whatever they like and pay whomsoever they wish to go anywhere they fancy. But, as I tried to explain to my Alsatian the other evening for reasons far too unpalatable to go into here, just because you CAN do something, it doesn’t mean you HAVE to. I mean, I’d like to bet that if, for instance, you paid them enough hard cash, you could get any of the stars of Gogglebox to stand in a bucket full of scrambled egg while Chris Akabusi sang ‘Wondering Star’ whilst dressed as Lobster. I could make this happen. And if I couldn’t Richard Osman probably could and he’d sell it to Endemol Television. But, come on, WHY?

The Jump is typical of the sort of show that programme makers THINK we want to see. It’s a format that, they imagine, simply cannot fail. If it doesn’t remind you of your recent skiing holiday then it fills you with anticipation about your impending skiing holiday and if you’re not having a skiing holiday it will comfort you as you aspire to a skiing holiday and, if you don’t ‘do’ skiing holidays then you can look at celebrities from Made in Chelsea eating and drinking with Olympians, and ex rugby internationals throwing snowballs at glamour models, and soap stars and former footballers having some ‘bantz’, and Davina ‘bantzing’ away with everyone in earshot, which actually means everyone in the north western hemisphere, and if this doesn’t appeal there’s always Stacey Sodding Solomon, what more do you want? Eh?!

I can’t work out if The Jump was actually pitched to ITV executives by several graduates as a new concept in entertainment, in which case they were simply shown the door at which point one of them blurted out ‘Davina’s agreed to do it’ and contracts were signed. Or weather Davina’s agent just turned up one day and told the production company that his client had a 6 week skiing holiday every year and needed something to do on the Sundays so they’d better adapt some old celebrity talent show format. Either way it’s clear that the assumption is that, as long as Ms McCall is involved you can pretty much televise a celebrity knitting competition and viewers will tune-in in their droves. In fact, give it a fortnight and there they’ll be; Binky Felsted, Gemma Collins, Alan Shearer and Geoff Boycott all going clickety-clack with their knitting needles as Stacey Solomon uncorks vintage Krug and chucks Faberge eggs into the sea.

It’ll be called The Jumper.

Probably.