[alli55]

With Gemma on the show, of course, we need no other reason than that to tune in, though I will admit to having a slight morbid fascination to see whether Channel 4 will again dare to cross the line of acceptability. Perhaps the clue’s in the show’s title! I know Phil shares this curiosity, in the same way that you can’t help but look at a car-crash as you go past. But, as for the girls, well, it’s all about Gemma – nothing else matters!

So, here we are, all sitting and waiting for 8 o’clock, eagerly anticipating Gemma’s next TV appearance. Well, three of us are sitting; Lissie is once again sprawled over the floor with her pillow for comfort! As before, her foot is wiggling away nicely!

“This is it!” she announces, when the adverts appear to have come to an end.

“Next on Channel 4, it’s the new gameshow that everyone’s talking about, Britain’s Most Daring. If you have a complaint about the contents of this evening’s programme, please write to BBC Television Centre, London …”

The opening titles for Channel 4’s new edgy gameshow interrupt the announcer’s tongue-in-cheek introduction. This week they show a mixture of the images used in the titles last week and some bits from the regional auditions that have been added in. As the titles come to their finale, we hear the studio audience’s applause, which dies down as the screen fades to black and a caption in white writing appears: ‘Last week on Britain’s Most Daring …’

A montage follows, showing highlights of the previous week’s show. In a dizzying array of rapidly-changing images we see: people being gunged with icy water, batter mix, and cowpats; various people poking, prodding, and, just occasionally, eating lumps of different raw meats; a man picking a key out of a bucket of animal poo; people being thrown off the end of a pier into the sea; a woman with bits of pig’s heart falling out of her mouth; an embarrassed flame-haired young lad being kissed on the cheek by a raven-haired beauty of womanhood, as a large dragon pats his head; a young woman putting a snail into her mouth and eating it; people walking across a bed of nails and a tray of burning embers; a young black woman reconstructing an eel from various chopped-up pieces; an overweight lad in a bright blue flowery bikini top that appears reluctant to cover his moobs; and a middle-aged man being shot with paintball pellets. Interspersed with all this madness are mugshots of the 15 successful wannabes, each image on screen for no more than a second. The montage comes to an abrupt end with the phrase ‘this is shit’ spelt out in some sort of minced stuff on a table.

The audience applauds again, and we see the two presenters standing side by side. Trixie is wearing a black boob tube top with tight-fitting jeans; Joe has on a subtle variation of last week’s outfit, keeping the slightly-worn skinny jeans but now accompanying it with a lime-green t-shirt.

Waiting for the applause to die down before she starts to speak, Trixie begins her introduction. “Hello, and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me, Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… and me, Joe Denecker,” comes the familiar reply from her co-presenter.

“Wow, Joe!” exclaims Trixie. “I can hardly believe we packed all that into last week’s show!”

“I know,” Joe replies, “but I tell you what I canna believe!”

“Go on!” Trixie encourages.

“After the all fuss in the papers and on TV, like,” Joe explains, “I canna believe they’ve let us come back this week to do it all again!”

“I know what you mean!” Trixie agrees.

“At one point there,” Joe goes on, “I thought we were all going to be locked in the Tower or excommunicated or something!”

“Hmmm,” Trixie reflects for a moment, “I think that’s something only the Pope can do, and I’m not sure he was watching last week!”

“Really? Whyever not?” Joe asks, incredulously. “Come on, your Popeness, get your act together, man! You don’t know what you’re missing!” Trixie rolls her eyes as Joe continues, “I mean, I have it on good authority that The Queen watched it! So if it’s good enough for Her Maj, then surely His Popeness can take a look!”

An exasperated Trixie asks, “Have you quite finished?”

“I think so!” Joe tells her.

“And who on earth told you that The Queen watched last week’s show?”

“I’m not at liberty to say!”

“It was your mate, Jimmy, wasn’t it?”

Joe adopts a slightly aloof posture, as he reveals, “It might have been!”

“Well, I suggest you pay less attention to his idle tittle-tattle,” Trixie advises, “and concentrate on the more important matter at hand!”

“Which is?”

“The fact that we’re back, despite everything!”

“Which,” Joe repeats, “I canna believe they’ve let us do!”

“Well they have, and we’re here, and we’ve got so much to get through! So, let’s crack on!” says Trixie. “If you thought last week was crazy, well, just wait till you see what we’ve got for you this week! After last week’s dare-fest at our regional auditions, we have our 15 wannabe winners, all hoping to be crowned Britain’s Most Daring.”

“Each week wor daredevils will be given a new dare to complete,” Joe continues to explain, “and on this show, if you flop you’re dropped!”

Trixie continues, “Every week we’ll be losing the person who is judged to have performed their dares least successfully, until we end up with just one person left: Britain’s Most Daring.”

“Last week, we discovered wor 10 regional winners,” Joe reminds us, “and chose wor 5 wowwers, wor ‘wonderful wildcards’. Their journey has just begun, but for one of them it’s going to come to a crashing halt very quickly!”

Trixie explains what happens next. “After last week’s show, our 10 regional winners and 5 ‘wonderful wildcards’ were ready to be given their first dare. Let’s see how that went!”

The screen shows the 15 daredevils sat in their three rows of chairs, with the two presenters, in last week’s outfits, stood in front and to one end of the rows.

The on-screen Trixie continues the explanation. “So, we have our 15 daredevils, all ready to take up their first dare on the way to becoming Britain’s Most Daring. Are you ready, everyone?” she asks them. They variously nod their heads and/or say “yes”.

Joe takes over. “Okay, there are two different dares this week, which, for the moment, we’ll call ‘A’ and ‘B’. Each of you has already taken an envelope at random, inside which is either the letter ‘A’ or the letter ‘B’. That will determine which dare each of you has been given! Is that clear?” Again, they all indicate in one way or another that it is.

“Alright everyone, open your envelopes!” Trixie instructs. “And show us what you’ve got!”

They rip open the envelopes, take a look at their letter, and then hold it up facing the camera. We can easily see that there are roughly equal numbers of ‘A’s and ‘B’s; the more pernickety viewers can count 8 ‘A’s and 7 ‘B’s.

We all look to see which dare Gemma has got. She is holding up a card with the letter ‘B’ on it.

“Okay,” Joe continues, “to tell you what dares you’ll be facing, it’s time to hear from wor very own Dare Deliverer!”

An authoritative woman’s voice, which manages to sound sultry at the same time, is heard in the studio and at home. “For your first dare I want you to meet new people! But not as yourself; as someone different! If you picked dare ‘A’, you are to be some sort of famous person or celebrity, and you must convince as many strangers as you can of that fact! Those of you with dare ‘B’, well, you are a foreigner, from abroad ,somewhere, and you must keep up that ruse for as long as you can! Be bold! Be daring! And just for this week, forget what Gloria Gaynor sang: you’re not what you are; you are what you’re not! Have fun, my little daredevils!”

“Oh my God!” exclaims Lissie. “She’s got to pretend to be a foreigner!”

“She was quite good with her languages at school, wasn’t she?” I remember aloud.

“Yes!” Maddie confirms. “She got French and German at GCSE, I think.”

“I think she’ll be okay with this!” I tell the others.

We see lots of the daredevils checking again to see which dare they’ve got, now they know what the dares are. Some seem relaxed about the dares, while one or two are looking a little more apprehensive than they were a minute ago.

Gemma, we notice, is still looking relaxed.

“So,” Trixie tells them, “you know your dares. You’ve got the next 6 days to complete them as well as you can! Off you go!”

The filmed segment comes to an end as the daredevils begin to get up and wander off.

Back live in the studio, Trixie takes up where the filmed version of her had left off. “So, they’ve spent the last 6 days taking on their first dare. But before we see how they got on, let’s meet our DAPAs!”

“DAPAs?” asks Joe, setting Trixie up neatly for her to explain the term to the viewing public. “What on earth’s a DAPA when it’s at home?”

“A DAPA,” Trixie discloses, “is a Dare Attempt Performance Analyst. They’ll be watching the attempts our daredevils make to complete their dares and giving them a score out of 10. The three with the lowest overall scores will have to take part in our Live Dare-Off to see who has to leave the show.”

“Okay, I get it,” Joe says, “so, who are wor DAPAs?”

A man and a woman, both in their twenties and both dressed smartly in sharp suits, are shown on-screen. They look seriously into the camera as Trixie introduces them.

“Well, there’s DAPA Dan and DAPA Danielle!” she tells us and Joe.

The two DAPAs nod to the camera as Joe comments, “I can see why we’re calling them DAPAs!”

“Okay, our DAPAs are primed and ready,” Trixie announces, “after the break we’ll let them loose on the dare performances this week! Join us, when we come back, on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“Wow! That’s impressive!” declares Phil, with a heavy hint of sarcasm in his voice. “A show about dares that’s gone through its entire first part without showing a dare!”

“That’s not strictly true!” I point out. “We saw lots of dares in the highlights from last week.”

“One-nil, Mam!” cries Maddie, with a twinkle in her eye and a big grin on her face.

“Technically, we didn’t!” Phil informs me. “We saw tiny clips of dares, not the entire things!”

“One-all! Can Mam re-take the lead?” Maddie says, as her sister collapses in a fit of giggles.

“Maddie, you’re not helping!” I tell her.

“Oh, no!” she declares. “Mam’s missed a great opportunity there!” Lissie is in hysterics.

“And before you say,” my husband continues, sensing his moment of victory, “lots of little clips of dares don’t add up to make a whole dare!”

Maddie adopts the excited voice of a football commentator: “Oh, that’s incredible! Dad has snatched a winner right at the end! Would you believe it?!”

Poor Lissie is holding her aching sides, she is laughing so hard!