Let's Get Gold - TV review

Oh dear. This always had all the makings of being an awful show . . . and it did not disappoint in that regard, writes James Wildman.

Let’s Get Gold (ITV1), hosted by Family Fortunes favourite Vernon Kay, is a three-part series being broadcast on consecutive nights, ending tomorrow. But I’m sure many of those who had the misfortune of tuning into last night’s cringeworthy opening episode will not be enduring much more.

The format involves sporting teams from across the UK being put through their paces via a series of tests designed to demonstrate their prowess. Who comes out on top wins £100,000.

Their success or failure in these challenges is judged by a hotch-potch of famous faces from the worlds of showbiz and sport - including Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand, former England cricket all-rounder Freddie Flintoff, ex-EastEnder-turned West End and singing star Martine McCutcheon and The Saturdays’ Una Healy.

Martine tells us she is looking for talent and “some muscles” and Rio declares he would pay to see this kind of entertainment.

Fair enough. But make no mistake, this is poor TV. Lame entertainment loosely based on the Britain’s Got Talent format, but nowhere near as good.

No disrespect to the sportsmen and women contestants involved, who are undeniably excellent at what they do and have the worthy aim of promoting their activity as they bid to win a cash prize for their clubs, but the TV executives who commissioned this show want sacking.

This has obviously been dreamed up at a brainstorming meeting as the TV schedulers try desperately to come up with as many ways as possible to capitalise on the Olympics theme.

But surely they can do better.

This first show featured five acts, including a trampoline team, martial arts team, freestyle basketball group, veteran footballers and cheerleaders, who all delivered accomplished routines. Each display was accompanied by some funky music and token slow-motion shots, before the judges gave their verdicts.

They were supposed to deliver a critique and award gold, silver or bronze, but all they could really do was compliment the acts – to do anything else would appear churlish.

So it was all fairly pointless.

Freddie Flintoff is a decent bloke who wasn’t taking the whole thing too seriously, and at least came out with some amusing comments, while Vernon Kay – fresh from his trip across the Pond trying to break into the American TV market – is not a bad host.

And Rio Ferdinand, wooden as he is, tried to do his bit by performing a ballet routine which he reveals he learned in his youth.

But these were the precious few highlights on a night when McCutcheon and Healy merely seemed lost.

Luckily for trampolinists Air Gravity, the audience on last night’s show chose them to put through to the final, so their hopes of winning £100,000 for their club remain alive.

All the best to them. But it would take a truly Olympian effort to lift this format – and no matter how talented any of the acts were on last night’s show, no-one was able to rise to that frankly impossible task.