Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: the world’s worst sitcom

The latest call was for stonkingly bad ideas for children’s books, an Olympic sport, a television sitcom or a reality TV series. Reading your entries brought back fond if painful memories of Alan Partridge’s Inner-City Sumo — ‘We take fat people from inner cities, put them in big nappies…’ — and monkey tennis. V. Ernest Cox’s proposed children’s book, A Pop-Up Book of Sexting, vied with John Samson’s Dignitas showjumping (don’t ask) for the bad-taste award, while Douglas G. Brown’s Poop Scoopin’ Fetishists scooped the gong for grossness. Top marks to Tracy Davidson’s pitch for the one-size-fits-all reality TV show The Only Way Is Strictly Come Dine With Me In The Jungle: ‘If you’ve dreamed of watching people dance the paso doble above pits of venomous snakes, or cook kangaroo-bollock curries for Mary Berry, this show is for you.’ And dishonourable mentions to C.J. Gleed, Michael Jones and Ken Stevens. The winners take £25 each. Bill Greenwell trousers £30.

Bill Greenwell Set in a refugee camp in Kent, the wacky sitcom ‘Repel All Borders’ will be the first time on TV that economic and other migrants have been seen as they really are — a good-natured bunch of wannabes, with just the occasional rotten kumquat. Ari V’Derci and his missus Amira have come over as Syrian stowaways with her Slovakian mother Valéria, as well as their children, Latifah and Hanifah. Every week they face a new challenge as they attempt to integrate themselves into the local community, and try to pass the citizenship test. Up against them is ‘Chalky’ White and his immigration team, with their catchphrase ‘How do you cook a Christmas pudding?’ In the first episode, Ari gets a clandestine job as a hop-picker, and Amira tries out a burkini at Whitstable beach.

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