The actor Mrs Patrick Campbell once told the playwright (and her friend) George Bernard Shaw that, when he was a little boy, someone should have told him to hush, just once. I feel that a similar message, delivered with the same firm but loving kindness, should be delivered to the makers of 007: The Road to a Million. Not every reality show idea has to be brought to fruition. Not even if it comes with Barbara Broccoli’s blessing and some name-brand recognition. You could say no, just once.
The tenuously James-Bond-affiliated premise is this: nine couples – friends, married pairs, sisters, brothers, a father and son – have the chance to win £1m each by answering a series of questions. To find the questions, they have to travel round the globe undertaking a series of Bond-lite challenges and – for extra thrills – pull open the ring tab on a smoke canister to find out if their answer was right. Green smoke, advance to the next country and question; red smoke, off home you pop.
