HARRY Hill is glad that he isn’t making TV Burp anymore – so that he doesn’t have to watch “mindless” Love Island.
The comedian, whose Bafta winning series poked fun at television programmes for 11 years until it ended in 2012, thinks reality shows just want contestants with “less and less clothes” these days.
Gemma Owen and Adam Collard on this year’s Love Island
Harry Hill thinks that Love Island is ‘mindless’
Speaking to The Celeb Report, the 57-year-old entertainer also reveals Simon Cowell was considering bringing back the flop X-Factor Musical I Can’t Sing, which closed after just six weeks in 2014.
Father-of-three Harry’s daughters Kitty, 25, Winifred, 24, and Frederica, 18, watch Love Island, so he keeps up with the goings-on in the villa.
He says: “I have watched bits of Love Island, my kids love it. It seems slightly mindless to me.”
It is, for him, yet another degraded copy of the Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall show Big Brother.
“The big daddy of them all is Big Brother, which really started reality TV and these others are variations on that,” he says.
“Except they have hardly got anything on, semi naked people. There are less and less clothes, reaching a zenith with Naked Attraction.”
He adds: “Light entertainment has changed. It used to be studio based shows, tap dancing and a ventriloquist and comedy sketches.
“Now they want things you can make in high volume, but quite cheaply.”
Programmes like Love Island and Channel 4’s Naked Attraction, where couples pick a date based on the appearance of their nude body, would provide hilarious material for TV Burp if he was to bring it back.
He adds: “There is loads of brilliant fodder for it – Tiger King, all these streaming shows, you think of how our TV habits have changed. There is Naked Attraction.”
The problem, though, is that Harry had to watch soaps all day as part of his research for TV Burp – and it isn’t something he could stand doing again.
He explains: “I don’t know if you have ever tried watching three hours of Emmerdale back to back, followed by two hours of EastEnders, followed by two hours of Coronation Street.
“It does tend to get to one after a while.
“I wasn’t watching it just for fun, I was thinking about what would be funny for my show on Saturday.”
But there is some new telly that meets with Harry’s approval.
He says: “You think you’ve seen everything, and ever so now and again something surprises us.
“Something like The Masked Singer comes along – simple format, intriguing.”
Simon Cowell’s pet project
Simon Cowell and Harry at the launch of the X Factor musical I Can’t Sing
Harry is currently working on several projects, including a stand-up tour next year and plans for a new movie.
He has also selected a series of public art works which will be appearing in London’s West End from next month, including one made by himself.
Perhaps, most surprisingly, Harry’s flop X Factor musical could be on its way back, despite losing a reported £4million during its first run.
The comic claims Simon Cowell still sings the songs from the stage show, which starred Grammy award winning singer and actress Cynthia Erivo.
Harry says: “We were talking about bringing it back before the pandemic, but that kind of put paid to that.
“Simon really likes the songs. I spoke with the guy who works with him and he said they had been sitting around singing the songs.”
New passion
Art is a hobby which is taking up more and more of Harry’s life, with his work being exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts summer show in the past.
As a result, he’s been chosen to judge Art of London’s Brighter Future project this year, even though he is an amateur.
That should cause some friction in the Hill household in Whitstable, Kent because his wife Magda Archer makes her living from producing art.
Harry says: “I know I get to do things that my wife doesn’t because I am a celebrity.
“She is very generous, she is very encouraging to me. I have to be a bit wary of that because I am very aware that I am just there because I am a celebrity rather than because I am a brilliant artist.”
Harry’s comedy show TV Burp won several awards
