Don’t Call Me Stupid, Tuesday 10pm, ITV

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:
Try and think of the most ridiculous celebrity pairing you can. And remember, you can’t have John McCririck and Edwina Currie. Or Janet Street-Porter and Paul Burrell. They’ve been done.

Those in charge of casting for ITV’s Don’t Call Me Stupid, now four episodes in, have obviously had superfun dreaming up mindbending duos. The idea is that each takes turns to teach the other about their specialist subject before host Alexander Armstrong, in full ultra jovial Pimms o’clock mode, puts their newfound knowledge to the test.

Tonight it’s Celebrity Big Brother star, sorry, “revered feminist” Germaine Greer taking on former Boyzone singer Shane Lynch, aka “one of the ones who wasn’t Ronan Keating”. However, instead of taking the boring old topics of pop music and feminism, Lynch gets to teach Greer the nuts and bolts of car mechanics and Greer educates Lynch about, er, flowers. See what they did there? They reinforced gender stereotypes in the name of comedy! Unless it was supposed to be ironic, in which case, it’s probably fine.

While Shane and Germaine get on really well (who’da thought it, etc etc) the whole jolly caper is marred by the fact that, unlike your Wife Swaps or I’m a Celebritys, it’s hard to believe the pair really spent much time together. As for them both, by chance, getting identical scores on their respective quizzes, get me Ofcom on the phone.

Seriously, if you want funny pairings, switch over to BBC2 and watch Gavin and Stacey instead.