[alli55]

I take advantage of the ad-break to go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of fruit juice. I make a second one, when Phil works out what I’m doing and requests one as well.

Lissie is getting increasingly impatient to see Gemma in action, but, as Maddie explains, we are only halfway through the show’s 90-minute slot in the Channel 4 schedule, so there’s plenty of time yet for her to feature.

“I hope it’s soon!” Lissie remarks.

We’ll find out shortly, as the theme music begins once more.

“Thanks for joining us,” says Trixie, launching the next part of the show, “as we continue to check out our daredevils’ first dare on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“We’ve seen 8 of wor daredevils so far,” says Joe, “so there’s plenty more to check out!”

“Let’s see some more unbelievable foreigners, shall we?!” suggests Trixie. “Take it away, Ayla and Keenan!”

The next montage provides us with a compare and contrast exercise, as it quickly becomes evident that Ayla and Keenan have taken very different approaches to the same dare …

… Right from the start of the montage, we see Keenan at different tourist spots in Central London, conversing with people in a variety of mangled accents. Each time we return to him, at a new London landmark, Keenan’s accent changes slightly. He is getting lots of attention, and an equal number of puzzled looks. But, it’s in Trafalgar Square that he faces his biggest challenge, as he gets caught up in an argument between two competing tour guides. They both want him to join their tour, and spend some time explaining how much better their tour is than their rival’s. Poor Keenan, who we think is attempting a German accent, though his delivery makes it quite hard to tell, attempts to be diplomatic at first. When this doesn’t work, he tells them that he has to be at Piccadilly Circus shortly to meet a friend. They don’t believe him, and continue trying to enlist him on their respective tours. Eventually, he spots a police officer, and asks for help, in his mangled accent. The officer helpfully warns the guides to stop harassing tourists, but then, once the guides have moved off, asks Keenan why he is pretending to be a foreign tourist. Keenan admits that he is simply doing it for a dare. “Maybe, don’t!” he advises …

… Each time we see Ayla, however, at least in the first half of the montage, she is at home practising her American accent. She is having trouble, though, eliminating her natural Edinburgh lilt. Her method of practising appears to consist of watching a classic Hollywood movie and trying to repeat the lines. Never mind ‘There’s Something About Mary’, there’s very definitely something about Ayla’s approach to this dare! Despite all her film-based research, Ayla’s American accent is not actually improving any! Needing to get her dare done, though, she heads off to a popular tourist destination and sets to work. So it is that in the latter part of the montage, we see her at Edinburgh Castle, where she is trying to pass herself off as an American student. This doesn’t appear to be meeting with much success; or, as one disbelieving young lad tells her, “If you’re American, then I’m Donald Trump!”; and that he most definitely isn’t! …

… Keenan, meanwhile, signs off the montage from the gates of Buckingham Palace, with a fairly French-sounding, “back to ze studio!”

In the studio, Ayla is sat with her head in her hands, unable to watch her own attempts at the dare. She looks up when Trixie speaks to her.

“You don’t appear very happy with how that went, Ayla!” she remarks.

“That was absolutely terrible!” Ayla exclaims. “I hated it!”

“Maybe you’re just too Scottish!” suggests Trixie.

“I’m no having that!” Ayla retorts. “There’s no such thing as ‘too Scottish’!”

The audience applaud loudly, backing up one of their favourite daredevils.

“Why an American accent?” asks Trixie.

“I can’t really do accents,” Ayla admits, “so I thought if I tried to copy the voices in the big American movies, that might be my best hope.”

“Well, let’s see what the DAPAs have to say!” Trixie looks at Dan and Danielle, awaiting their verdict.

It’s another low score, with the two DAPAs in agreement, awarding just 3 points each. Ayla holds her head in her hands again, as Trixie explains how that leaves her in the bottom three, facing the Dare-Off. Further along the row of chairs, Tommy looks relieved as he escapes that fate.

“Keenan,” Joe begins, “if nothing else, it looks like you got a fair bit of sightseeing in!”

Keenan laughs. “Yeah, I pretty much done the proper tourist route round the sights!”

Joe continues, mischievously, “But did you have to try a different accent at each one?”

Keenan laughs again. “Oh, mate, you have no idea! I just couldn’t get one that I was really happy with, so I swapped about a bit!”

“And did you actually know what any of them were supposed to be?”

“I think they were all vaguely European! With Brexit and all that, it doesn’t really matter where in Europe, does it?!”

“That’s one way of looking at it!” says Joe. “Let’s see if the DAPAs agree!”

The DAPAs are divided on this one, with Dan awarding 7 points but Danielle giving only 5. Still, a total score of 12 leaves Keenan happy enough.

“Yep,” he says, “that’s fair enough! Nice one, Dan!”

We see a shot of the DAPAs: Dan is showing no emotion, but Danielle has her arms crossed and is looking at Dan and shaking her head.

“Okay,” says Trixie, “five daredevils still to see, so let’s take a look at our next group: Dylan, Jaz, and Tariq!”

Lissie can’t believe that we’re still not going to see Gemma. A loud and exaggerated sigh indicates her displeasure.

A lengthy montage follows, intermingling three very different approaches to the ‘convince strangers you’re famous’ dare: …

… Dylan, with help from fellow members of the Swansea Uni Dare Club, has somehow managed to persuade a local bookstore to hold a book signing session for a random novel from off the shelves. The Dare Clubbers have acquired 20 copies of the book, ready for Dylan to sign. Quite why the bookstore is going along with all this isn’t clear! Having stayed up all night reading the book, so that he can at least talk meaningfully to people about its plot and characters, Dylan tries to master a convincing signature for the author, one Neville Broadhurst. “I want something quite flamboyant,” he tells us, “but which I can actually do the same each time!” In the end, he drops the flamboyance for something closer to his normal writing, so that at least all the autographs will look fairly similar! Amazingly, people fall for this prank, and, over a series of shots in the latter half of the montage we see Dylan happily signing copies for people interested in purchasing ‘his’ book! …

… Jaz also enlists help, in her case from her older sister. Nicki is a teacher at a local primary school, and although she is Jaz’s sister, they reason that the kids in Nicki’s class will count as strangers. The two sisters approach the school’s headmistress and explain what they want to do, and why they want to do it. “Basically,” Nicki tells the head, “we’d like Jaz to come in and spend some time talking with the class about children’s book illustrations. Only, we’d tell them that she’s a famous children’s artist!” The head, unsurprisingly, is concerned that the children are going to very disappointed by their not-at-all-famous artist visitor, but Jaz assures her that she can draw pretty well, and she promises that all the children will have a picture to take home. That satisfies the head, and so, the next time we see her, Nicki is telling her class that they are going to have a visit from a famous children’s artist, whose illustrations have appeared in a number of well-known books. When Jaz enters the classroom, the kids are as excited as you would expect a class of 7-and-8-year-olds to be. They listen attentively as she tells them briefly about drawing pictures for children’s books, but what they really want is for her to draw them a picture! Fortunately, Jaz is able to back up her story with some more-than-competent pictures that she draws for the awestruck kids; and, as promised, all the children go home with a picture to remember the day they met a famous artist. Until their parents watch this, of course! …

… We see Tariq hanging around a series of hard-surface football pitches in various parts of London. He has decided to use his footballing skills to pass himself off as an up-and-coming player at top local professional club, Queens Park Rangers. He’s a keen QPR fan, so he knows enough about the club to convince the kids who are having a kickabout with him. He challenges them to see who can do the most keepy-uppys, something he is particularly good at, and they marvel at his ability to keep the ball off the ground for so long. He’s getting his dare done and making a load of kids very happy at the same time! But, at the end of the montage, he confesses to feeling slightly guilty about lying to the kids like he has!

The montage’s conclusion is greeted with a tumultuous round of applause, accompanied by whistling and whooping, as the audience recognises three very impressive dare attempts. Dylan, Jaz, and Tariq are all looking pleased with themselves, as well they might!

“Well that was something else!” remarks Trixie.

“That, folks,” adds Joe, addressing the viewing public, “is how to do a dare properly!”

“So, Dare Club?” Trixie asks Dylan.

“It’s not an official club,” he explains, “but seven or eight of us are really into daring each other to do stupid stuff, so we regard it as a sort of club. But that was the best one we’ve ever done!”

“How did you get the bookstore to agree?” Joe asks one of the questions we all want answered.

“It’s an independent store,” Dylan replies, “owned by the uncle of one of our Dare Club members, so we just explained what we were trying to do and he was properly up for it!”

“And, was ‘your’ book any good?” Joe enquires, cheekily.

“I honestly can’t remember much of it!” Dylan admits. “Either I was really zonked after reading it, or it must have been crap!”

Trixie turns her attention to Tariq and Jaz. “And you two,” she says, “I suppose you feel quite pleased with yourselves for disillusioning children like that!”

Tariq and Jaz look at each other, neither particularly wanting to have to provide a justifiable defence against the allegation. After a short pause, Tariq bites the bullet.

“Like I said at the end of the film,” he points out, “I wasn’t totally happy, but you gotta do what you gotta do, at the end of the day, innit!”

“And what have you got to say for yourself?” Trixie asks Jaz.

Jaz looks uncomfortable, but says, quietly, “Well, at least they all had a nice picture to take home!”

Joe comes to her defence. “I told you, Trixie,” he says, “you do a dare properly; you take no prisoners!”

“Well, let’s see if the DAPAs agree!” Trixie replies.

With three daredevils to be judged, the DAPAs get their longest exposure yet. Prompted by Trixie, they give Dylan 15 points overall, Dan awarding 8 and Danielle 7; Jaz gets 8 from both DAPAs, putting her in joint first place with Shanumi, on 16 points; Tariq, for some reason which the audience can’t fathom, receives 8 from Danielle but only 6 from Dan, giving him 14 in total.

Joe is able to shed some light on Tariq’s low score from Dan. “Unfortunately, Tariq,” he says, “you chose the wrong team! DAPA Dan’s a Chelsea fan, so QPR was never going to cut it with him!” There is a mixture of cheers and boos from the audience, as football allegiances temporarily take over.

Despite this, all three are very pleased with their high scores. With her position as joint leader confirmed, Jaz is particularly happy.

“I can’t believe it!” she tells Trixie. “It’s amazing!”

“We’ve got just two daredevils left to see,” Trixie informs us, in case we haven’t been keeping track of things. “We’ll see Gemma and Matt in action after the break. Join us, then, for more Britain’s Most Daring!”

“Those poor kids!” Lissie exclaims. “That was so mean! Making them think they were meeting a proper artist! I bet they were really upset when they found out!”

“Maybe, but I bet they were really excited when they found out they were going to be on TV!” her sister tells her.

Lissie hasn’t thought of that. She has to concede that being on TV is probably more exciting than meeting a book illustrator.