What is it about middle-aged women squeezing into unflattering leotards and prancing about in front of cameras?
First Madge in the video for Hung Up, and now Davina McCall in an advert for some awful new series on dancing from Sky.
By my reckoning McCall is one of the more unloved characters on TV, horribly over-exposed and extremely annoying – if not actually evil.
And this ad seems predicated on the belief that people actually want to see McCall, in all her almost-gynaecological glory, take part in some bad dance routines.
This is peculiar, as it’s always seemed unlikely to me that the public regard McCall with anything other than tolerance at best.
This full ad was teased with the first few seconds where McCall, in what’s supposed to be a sassy and sexually-provocative move, climbs onto a table of judges and starts wiggling her ass about.
In what was a clear attempt to invite the question ‘I wonder what all this is about?’ no mention of the show was made. My own response to seeing the tease was ‘Whatever the hell this is promoting, I never want to see it’.
McCall’s bird-of-prey-like visage – at one point she seems about to devour a young child – and oddly-shapeless body in an unflattering outfit, together with an overriding sense of self-satisfaction swaddling the whole thing, combine to make this one of the more unpleasant 100 seconds I’ve recently had the misfortune to endure.