Leigh Francis’s deliberately repulsive alter ego Keith Lemon is one of the silliest, most tedious people on television. So he is an entirely appropriate host on E4’s very silly, and rather tedious, new show, The Real Dirty Dancing. An overlong list of random minor celebs are gathered together for an overlong 80 minutes to act out various scenes from the undistinguished but cultish “iconic” 1987 film Dirty Dancing. With so many on board, it all becomes very repetitive very quickly, and it is about half an hour too long (being generous).
The “action” takes place in a replica of the original Kellerman’s camp (this time in East Anglia rather than North Carolina) and the celebrities dress up, gamely get coached in mucky dance moves and have a stab at acting so as to “become” Johnny Castle (the Patrick Swayze role) and Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey). The aim is that the pairing who display the most sexual chemistry (yuck) and are the least bad dancers/actors get to perform “The Lift” in front of an audience of Dirty Dancing superfans in an unnamed venue (but unlikely to be Shakespeare’s Globe). If the first instalment is anything to go by, it’s basically a festival of good-natured failure.
