Good news, everyone! Davina McCall has signed on to present weight-loss show, The Biggest Loser (Monday, ITV1, 9pm), taking over from that nice Kate Garraway. This new batch of contestants won't have to resort to diet and exercise to make up for decades spent basting their innards with animal fat. Slip her a tenner and Davina will melt the lard off your bones with whatever it is that really makes her hair that shiny.
But the desperately large are the only people likely to celebrate DM's arrival at grown up fat camp. The rest of us have had it with her dead-eyed head tilting and limp interrogation style. Though cosmetics giant L'Oreal may beg to differ, Davina really isn't worth it.
It may not have been her earliest TV gig, but we first noticed McCall in 1998 when she took to galloping around the UK's urban centres match-making awkward singletons. It was Channel 4's Streetmate--a show that hooked us in an era when online dating hadn't yet taken off, but unattached people were beginning to demand that sexual conquests should be gifted to them rather than hunted down the old-fashioned way. We liked it. And back then Davina's incurable bounce was bearable--essential, even.
Then the bad thing happened. In 2000, Dutch entertainment Goliath Endemol brought Big Brother to Britain. Davina was drafted in to comfort and taunt evicted housemates. For the first series or two, we were fascinated by the format, cared about the participants and tolerated its host. But every time the show was renewed, it lost a little more of its magic. Revolting housemates were piped in in the hope that they might sleep with each other or have a breakdown, slice off their genitals and wave them at the camera in the diary room. And Davina revelled in their awfulness. For ten years she was unerringly enamoured with the contestants. Whatever they got up to that day fascinated her ("Look everyone, Nadia's scratching her knee! Crazy!"). We no longer cared and Davina didn't pick up on the downturn.
But she was getting more work than ever. There was Popstars: The Rivals and another dating show, ITV1's Love on a Saturday Night. She presented the BAFTAs in 2004 and even snaffled an acting job. Anyone remember that petrifyingly dismal sitcom, Sam's Game, starring Ed Byrne? Thought not. Then, the BBC wanted its pound of McCall. Once wooed, they searched for the perfect vehicle. "Davina's got kids!" some genius no doubt roared. "Why not give her a show about first time dads?" So. Many. Reasons... Anyhow, He's Having a Baby was thought to be a match, and, shockingly, it bombed. So did her 2005 BBC One chat show called simply, Davina. And yet, the flops never made a dent. She's still here, taunting poor people with cash wads on The Million Pound Drop, and now buoying the obese on The Biggest Loser. The woman has more staying power than herpes.
Are you a lover or a hater of her presenting skills? Tell us below!
The last thing people need is some skinny as hell person telling them they can do it. I'd slap her. Can't they get someone who's had some kind of weight struggle - what's Fern Britton doing at the moment?
I couldn't disagree more, I think she is very likeable and a good presenter at the things she does. She knows she will never be presenting "Life Stories" or whatever because she's better at the light hearted stuff.
Not a fan of her presenting skills but do find her strangely attractive.