What, you may be tempted to ask, is
Frank Lampard doing in ITV's new panel show Play To The Whistle?
The show is part of ITV's new "Super
Saturday" schedule, which has delivered modest audiences, while redefining
the word "super."
It follows the new series of
Britain's Got Talent, but retains only about two-and-a-half million of BGT's
nine-and-a-half million audience, with a format that will be achingly familiar
to you if you've watched any television at all over the past twenty years.
Two teams of three compete in a
pretend quiz, answering pretend questions on sport.
Frank is one of the team captains.
He clearly doesn't need the money - unless the Sunday Times
rich list has added an extra nought or two to his net worth - so one assumes
his presence is some kind of charm offensive.
Where in former times, a career in
Chelsea's midfield might have segued seamlessly into blameless retirement
running a pub in Chertsey, it seems these days, telly is the preferred way to
fill the unforgiving years after the knees have gone (as hitmakers Earth, Wind,
and Fire almost put it).
And where your journeyman pro might
settle for a gig or two on Talksport or Sky's Goals On Sunday, Lamps, or
Superlamps as he's sometimes called on Play To The Whistle, is surely destined
for something greater, with his well-advertised 11 GCSEs, TV presenter
girlfriend, and all-round appealing amiability.
The template may well be Gary
Lineker, who was a team captain on They Think It's All Over, which ran for 19
series, 154 episodes, from 1995 - 2006.
It didn't do Gary any harm, though he left the show in 2003, when the
format appeared to have run its course along with lads' mags and Police Academy
movies.
Who would have thought that more
than a decade later, the mix of sports stars, comedians, and laddish joviality,
would not only live on, but be seen as the saviour of ITV's Saturday night?
The role of the sports person on
these shows is to be the butt of the jokes, few of which are in danger of being
confused with the work of Oscar Wilde.
For instance, former Test cricketer Graeme Swann was introduced as
"a man who used to get his googlies out in public," a line I'm
assuming someone must have actually written down, as host Holly Willoughby read
it out.
Frank copes quite well with this
low-quality bants - as I believe it should correctly be called - smiling
winningly and appearing pleased to be there in the cutaways, which is half the
battle.
He may be carving out a
post-football career, circumventing I'm A Celebrity, and any number of cookery
shows, unlike another regular, ex-Fulham man Jimmy Bullard, who appears wearing
women's clothing for no discernible reason.
Interestingly, the resident
comedian is one of the best and brightest in the business, Romesh Ranganathan,
but he delivers his zingers deadpan, and maintains a doleful outlook at odds
with the shiny Saturday night Willoughbyness of the thing.
He appears not so much to have wandered
in by mistake from another studio, as from another channel.
But what do I know?
I joined in the critical mauling of
Sky's A League of Their Own - "Imagine A Question Of Sport without the
sport combined with They Think It's All Over without the comedy," one of
us wrote.
That's now about to
return for a ninth series, garlanded with awards, and spawning unashamed
imitators like, er, Play To The Whistle.
Its host James Corden, meanwhile,
is having some success as a late-night talk show host in the U.S.
Well, despite my dismal record, I feel
safe in predicting not only that PTTW will not make it to a ninth series, but
that Holly Willoughby is unlikely to be signed up for a late night talk show in
the States, and Frank Lampard's future will not include pulling pints in
Surrey.
(If you want to read more of my views on sport on tv, the book Sit Down and Cheer is available at almost no book shops, but is on Amazon.)
