24 Hours With...

In an interview technique designed to draw as much from his subjects as possible, Jamie Campbell is placed in a comfortable room for 24 hours with a celebrity and left to get on with it. Cooking, drinking, sleeping or just hanging out, Jamie shoots the breeze and gets intimate with his various guests including Bobby Brown, Laurence Llewlyn-Bowen, Lee Ryan, Steve-O from Jackass, David Gest and Stan Collymore.

At the time of writing because two-thirds of the way through the series it was dropped from its Monday night slot in favour of ratings flop, Tycoon, which itself was being floated out into the Monday night slot from a longer, more primetime slot that it had failed to deliver in. This is a bit of a slap and it suggests that "24 Hours With…" was perhaps doing even less business in terms of getting viewers tuning in. In fairness though, the concept is actually pretty interesting and you can see why a punchy pitch would have gotten it greenlit because it does offer an interesting interview setup.

Of course at that pitch names such as Llewelyn-Bowen and Lee Ryan may not have been mentioned because had they been, the executive producers may not been all that impressed. Having said that though, I approached the show regardless of the guest because just because someone is C-list (a generous placing for Lee Ryan and Steve-O) does not mean that the interview technique cannot produce something of interest, insight and intimacy. We have seen on Celebrity Big Brother and other reality shows just how some famous people have let their guard down without really making a decision to do so. Sadly though the show rarely manages to break down these barriers to ay real degree – Llewelyn-Bowen being particularly guarded and dull, somehow managing to operate above the approach the whole 24 hours. Bobby Brown was probably the most well known and the most interesting because at one point he does just snap when Campbell makes a joke that involves homosexuality and Brown's time in prison. Campbell deliberately puts traps in the way of Ryan but doesn't manage to do much than cause a little bit of tension right at the end. It did annoy me that Gest and Collymore were in the shows that were dropped because maybe he could have drawn something from - at very least Collymore would have been of interest. Surprisingly Steve-O turned out to be the most interesting, mainly because his lack of self-importance or dignity means he just talks and drinks.

Overall then a nice concept but one that mostly fails to deliver. The lack of really interesting guests is one problem but even with them, Campbell doesn't really have the ability to draw them out in the confines of the room. He is quite good as a presenter in other things but here his public school sarcasm doesn't really do the trip where his guest is guarded. Worth a glance for the concept but really for most of the four shows I saw, it doesn't really come off in the way I'm sure they wanted to.