DESPITE apparently having minimal talent, some TV stars have mysteriously been appearing on our screens for decades. Like these:
Will Mellor
Not hard enough to be Danny Dyer or attractive enough to be Idris Elba, Will Mellor is basically an anonymous-looking bloke who has played the everyman so often you could mistake him for your local handyman. He started in Hollyoaks, was in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps for what felt like about 40 years and now is fresh in everyone’s mind from Mr Bates vs The Post Office. You’ll have forgotten about him again by next week though.
Vanessa Feltz
After The Vanessa Show was mercifully cancelled in 1999 we should have been done with Vanessa Feltz forever. She had other ideas, however, and reinvented herself as a reality TV star, appearing in Celebrity Big Brother, Ultimate Big Brother, Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Wife Swap, Strictly Come Dancing and Hell’s Kitchen. She’ll basically do anything for exposure, which is presumably why she’s still happy to appear on ITV’s rapidly sinking daytime flagship show This Morning.
Bradley Walsh
If you asked AI to come up with a generically cheesy Saturday night gameshow host, it would very quickly produce Bradley Walsh. He has no discernible personality, but that hasn’t stopped him presenting multiple TV shows, starring in panto and playing Pa Larkin in ITV’s appalling The Darling Buds of May spin-off The Larkins. He’s even got his son in on the act and you’ll be seeing them both presenting the rebooted Gladiators this weekend. Lucky you.
Amanda Holden
After acting in some forgettable 90s TV shows, Amanda Holden’s fame was secured by marrying Les Dennis and then jettisoning the relationship by having an affair with Neil Morrissey five years later. For some reason she was then made a judge on Britain’s Got Talent in 2007, which has beamed her blandly into our living rooms ever since. What she lacks in charm she makes up for in ubiquity, so don’t expect to stop seeing her on telly any time soon.
Stephen Mulhern
People of a certain age will have had the misfortune of being annoyed by Mulhern since he started on CITV in the early noughties. Everyone else is most likely to have caught his sub-Roy Walker schtick on Catchphrase while flicking through the channels during a skive from work, or stepping into Noel Edmond’s tiny shoes on Deal or No Deal. He’s destined to languish in the doldrums of light entertainment forever, so you’ll still be switching over whenever you see him in the year 2050.
