On paper, Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters sounds as if television has evolved into a more extreme, more dangerous beast. If you think I’m A Celebrity’s snakey, spidery hellholes are too soft on famous people, get a mouthful of this. Seven famous people, each with varying degrees of phobias about sharks, open water or both, will be thrown into the ocean, ie the natural habitat of sharks, those magnificent apex predators. Could this be the way Lenny Henry goes out?
Disappointingly, it turns out to be far more sensational in concept than execution. The show is timed to mark the 50th anniversary of Jaws, the film which cemented a fear of sharks in the imaginations of the general public. The idea is to correct the record and adjust perceptions of a creature that has come to be seen as “public enemy number one”.
