When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you Keith Lemon, you unfortunately have to make do with Celebrity Juice. The reality series – in which comedian Leigh Francis assumes the role of his spray-tanned alter-ego Lemon, subjecting a slew of celebrities to debasing tasks and lewd panel show banter – has been squatting on our TV screens for 14 years. That’s 26 seasons to date. But after two more farewell specials, the end is finally nigh: Celebrity Juice has been squeezed out.
ITV announced on Wednesday (29 June) that the series will be coming to an end this year. Naturally, the cancellation of any programme that has run for such a long time is going to be something of a big deal; Celebrity Juice pre-dates Glee, Avatar and the Obama administration. Few, however, would describe it as “venerable”. Rather, it’s just uncannily long-lived, the sort of televisual equivalent of UHT milk or tinned Spam. But while Celebrity Juice’s fans can be excused a few tears after all this time, the fact is that this is not some great loss for the medium. This is dead wood that has finally been lopped off the tree. Celebrity Juice was one of the most puerile, substanceless shows on TV. We should be bidding it good riddance.
