Aussies Show Their Sensitive Side on Celeb SAS – And Neighbours' Toadfish Takes the Cake!

GIVEN Ricky Gervais’ absence at the Golden Globes, January’s most entertainingly brutal TV segment was always going to be Billy Billingham’s opening demolition of the new Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins recruits on Channel 4.

For ’s contempt is as chillingly real as the recruits’ terror.

January’s most entertainingly brutal TV segment was always going to be Billy Billingham’s opening demolition of the new Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins recruitsCredit: Pete Dadds/Channel 4 British-style maniac Ryan Moloney’s chances of winning the show as low and his prospects of leaving that African desert alive as about 50-50Credit: Pete Dadds/Channel 4

Never before, though, have I seen one of the celebrities literally wet themselves during this process.

But that’s exactly what happened to the unfortunate , an Olympic gold-medal swimming champion who, once he started gushing, couldn’t stop and very nearly leaked into the first advert break.

Tearful bunch

An embarrassment so great that, if you weren’t familiar with Mack’s work beforehand, you certainly were by the time he finally ran dry and Billy said: “What do you do? Apart from p**s.”

No bad thing, in a strange way. Because, without this dramatic introduction you might be struggling to recognise any of the combatants beyond cricketer , rugby player and ’s daughter off .

has tried its best, though, to fashion the 14 celebrities into an Ashes-style contest between English and Australian recruits, which doesn’t really fit the format or create anything other than needle.

It’s not short of entertainment, however, with nearly all of it being provided by the Australian side who, contrary to what you may have been expecting, seem to be an uncharacteristically fragile and tearful bunch. In other respects, though, they can be very Australian.

With the award for the most Australian of the lot currently belonging to Olympic swimming champion Emily Seebohm, who seemed to start channelling Sir Les Patterson, halfway through episode one when she announced, apropos of nothing: “I was having sex once and I s**t on the guy’s nuts by accident.”

A delightful image, obviously, Em, but the really shocking thing about these Aussies is there’s an uptight British-style maniac among their ranks and he goes by the name Ryan “Toadfish from Neighbours” Moloney.

What’s got Ryan’s goat precisely? I do not know, but he has a mantra he likes to repeat whenever the challenges become a bit stressful: “We are strong. We are calm. We are strong. We are . . .”

Not calm or strong at all.

We are, in fact, a panic-stricken, short-tempered arse. Although, contrary to all evidence, Ryan really fancies himself as a steely-eyed, -style merchant of death who can kill a man with “just one punch”, and is making his fellow recruits’ life an absolute misery by constantly bollocking them about their water bottles and general attitude.

Only two episodes have passed, but I’d class Ryan’s chances of winning the show as low and his prospects of leaving that African desert alive as about 50-50.

He at least, though, has nothing much to lose, which is more than can be said for English Gladiator Toby “Phantom” Olubi, who came up with the worst sob story in reality TV history for ducking out of a behind-enemy-lines challenge during episode two.

“I’ve got allergies to dust and nits,” he explained to some severely unimpressed Afghanistan veterans. “And I’ve struggled with a deviated septum where I’ve only got one nostril that works.”

Short shrift doesn’t begin to describe the boys’ reaction to this excuse, which probably went down just as badly with the viewers, who grew sick of these sob stories well over a decade ago.

Indeed, sicknote fatigue is probably the main reason C4 had to junk the civilian version of Who Dares Wins in 2023.

Brick wall

A harsh economic lesson that should be taken on board by , which is currently riding high with its follow-up to the all-conquering series but cannot defy the rules of supply and demand for ever.

Personally, I wouldn’t lose much if I never watched another episode of the civilian Traitors again, as I don’t think it’s in the same league as its own spin-off.

I’m very glad, however, that saw sense and preserved Celebrity SAS, because as well as being a lot of fun it offers us Ryan “Toadfish” Moloney’s first rule of combat at the start of every episode.

“If you tell me to run into a brick wall, I’ll run head first into it.”

Ryan. Run into a brick wall.

(Celebrity , Sunday, C4, 9pm.)

UNEXPECTED MORONS IN THE BAGGING AREA

, : “In maths, what is nine plus seven?”

Fatiha El-Ghorri: “15.”

Romesh: “In tournaments, Zhao Xintong beat Mark Williams at the Crucible in to become 2025 World Champion in what sport?”

Luke Hamnett: “Javelin.”

, Bradley Walsh: “Who was on the throne when the first Sainsbury’s supermarket opened?”

Lou: “Elizabeth the First.” (Victoria.) Bradley Walsh: “In what 1939 does the main character get knocked out in a tornado?”

Lou: “Rocky.” “The Wizard Of Oz.”

(In association with TalkSPORT’s Andy Jacobs)

RANDOM TV IRRITATIONS

EPISODE one of the new Night Manager featuring everything you’d expect of a big-budget thriller, except an intelligible storyline.

Hugo’s nauseating habit of referring to the Traitors’ host as “Queen Claudia”.

The still serving up drag queens with everything.

And foghorn exiting her latest Weakest Link appearance with the promise: “I will come back again and again and again.”

Because, just like a urinary tract infection, you know she will.

THE mainstreaming of that suggestive little creep from the jungle has begun with a grand tour retread called ’s Magnificent Journey, on .

First stop, , where Tom loftily explained: “two-hundred years ago was cramped, dark and smelly. The Seine was a pestilent swamp, effluent ran through the streets.

There were no sewers, people threw their dirty water from the windows. And I might have had a thatch full of turd.”

So, not all bad then.

A MASH HIT FOR CORRIE

Corrie’s Rev Billy Mayhew died during Monday’s pile-up He spent over a year living as a bisexual Geordie dustman called Ivan Jones in EmmerdaleCredit: ITV

’S slickly executed /mash-up, on Monday night, very briefly left me feeling wistful about a show I used to love and wishing had tried something similar with Dallas and , back in the day.

Or, better still, had brought back Night And Day, fused it together with S4C’s Pobol y Cwm and called the resulting mess Night And Dai.

The generally positive response to Corriedale, however, shouldn’t blind anyone to the fact the only real winner on Monday night was , which has bent every other soap so successfully to its miserable, issue-driven, disaster-prone will that the three shows are now almost indistinguishable from each other.

Indeed, so beholden are the other pair to the Walford blueprint that the production teams have to rely on stunt episodes and increasingly elaborate disasters just to try to stem the catastrophic loss of viewers and ease the boredom of rotating the same old depressing plotlines about abductions, cancer scares and love triangles.

That said, Monday night’s experiment did offer one vintage flash of Corrie’s much-missed sense of humour when Steve McDonald spotted his old Street Cars mate Chris “Vikram” Bisson appearing from the other side of the Pennines and stuttered: “I just thought I saw somebody I used to work with, but it can’t be . . .”

The real challenge for the Weatherfield half of the equation, though, will not just be coming to terms with the death of Rev Billy Mayhew during Monday’s pile-up, but discovering he spent over a year living as a bisexual Geordie dustman called Ivan Jones in .

AMANDA and Alan’s Greek Job, ­episode one, Alan Carr: “Why does everyone do a poo in the houses we go to?”

Licence payers?

LOOKALIKE OF THE WEEK

Nigel Farage, left, and Bernie Clifton, rightCredit: Unknown

THIS week’s winner is and ostrich legend .

Emailed in by Peter Robertson.

GREAT SPORTING INSIGHTS

GREAT Sporting Insights. Jonathan Pearce: “Three- hundred and 65 years a day I’ve been a Grinch.”

Michael Dawson: “I saw the same thing when I didn’t see it last year.” And Jordan Graham: “Let’s say start with a blanket sheet.”

(Compiled by Graham Wray)

AND finally. Sports, Steve Sidwell: “I’ve played with in the dressing room.” On that bombshell…

TV GOLD

Mark Heap, centre, on BBC1’s promising new sitcom Can You Keep A SecretCredit: PA

MARK HEAP’S acting masterclass on BBC1’s promising new sitcom Can You Keep A Secret.

Sky Showcase’s I’m Chevy Chase And You’re Not. Traitor Hugo’s catastrophic but very entertaining inability to read a room, which left me wondering how he ever made a living as a barrister.

Rob Brydon, and dominating Would I Lie To You, no matter how “diverse and inclusive” the BBC tries to make the rest of the panel.

And ’ chief instructor Billy Billingham, one of the last authentic voices of the British people on TV, responding to Cole Anderson-James’ introduction: “I do like social media and stuff.”

“Ticky-tocky bother? Have you ever thought about getting a real job?”

COINCIDENCE of the week? Tom Read-Wilson’s Magnificent Journey.

Episode one, a fencing lesson, Tom: “Marie the instructor demands I defend my honour against expert swordswoman, Fanny.”

Which, by an incredibly long shot, was almost exactly what Marie the instructor told the expert swordswoman as well.

WORST moment of telly? Take your pick, but I reckon it was either BBC1 “sitcom” Stuffed or Cindy Beale’s response to a “come on” from Max the Mekon, at the Albert bar in EastEnders: “Santa hasn’t climbed up my chimney yet.”

No and nor has he tackled the 12 cooling towers at the Drax power station, for very similar reasons.