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Supermarket Sweep was a regular fixture of the ITV morning schedule, inbetween GMTV and This Morning, and only lasted thirty minutes, but if you’re going to bring something back, you have to make it run for an hour, these days as there’s schedules to fill. And this time round, it’s returning as early-evening entertainment.
Sadly, original UK host Dale Winton is no longer with us, and as much as this gameshow was fun, I still preferred In It To Win It, the Lottery spin-off where, if you failed to get a question right and needed a place to stay until you redeemed yourself, Dale would invite you into his ‘red area’. Oo-er, missus!
So, who can we rely upon to be both as camp as a row of tents AND *NOT* annoying? Step forward Rylan Clark-Neal. And he’s got a colourful set that looks like a sugar rush mixed with a Vietnam flashback!
Along the way, Rylan will hint at where a particular product can be found which has the show’s logo on it, and one of the contestants will have to find it, and usually by trashing everything on that aisle. There’s a rhyming game, plus another where some celebrities to guess, but they’re only celebs if you class “ITV presenters” as celebs, and since posting the review, I’ve updated the credits below with the list of celebs, now this episode has been broadcast.
Oh, and if you appear on this show, you get a Supermarket Sweep bag for life! I’d actually quite like one of those. I’m always leaving mine in the car and only remembering once I’m halfway round the shop!
The contestants are three pairs, namely Elisha and Michelle – who work at a bakery, Kyle and Brendan – who’ve been best friends since university, and Adam and Natasha – a couple who met on Tinder. Yes, somehow, there’s actually REAL people on there, and not just bots. The aim for them is to bank as much time as possible, and the pair with the most time goes onto the final round.
Rylan actually makes a good fist of this and has a lot of snappy comebacks, but if you’ve enjoyed it, note that this show is just running for five episodes across a single week, but I expect it’ll be a hit and will return. And no doubt, if it does, then just like your local supermarket, all the aisles will have been moved round so you can’t find anything.
But who will win? Well, you’ll find that answer by watching the programme, somewhere in the victinity of “just before 9pm”.
And, yes, I said ‘UK host’ regarding Dale Winton. That’s because it wasn’t a British invention. It actualy started in 1965, in the US, on ABC.
Plus, in watching the second episode, I was wondering if this might changeover to ITV in the morning, since after Jeremy Kyle’s show left the 9.25am slot vacant for anything but repeats of other shows, this revamp could well work in that slot. However, as the in-studio guests tend to revolve around reality TV shows which are broadcast on ITV2, then that may be the best place for it, as they can slot it in around other reality shows on that channel.
Supermarket Sweep begins tomorrow night on ITV2 at 8pm, and runs every weeknight for four weeks. As you’d expect, the series will not be released on DVD or Blu-ray, but after each episode is broadcast, they’ll be on the ITV Hub.
Episode 1 Score: 7/10
Director: Ollie Bartlett
Producer: Lisa Kirk
Host: Rylan Clark-Neal
Voiceover: Jennie McAlpine
Guests: Maura Higgins, Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Langsford
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.