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13 hours ago
4
I felt 100 years old this week, watching a new gameshow on Prime Video which features 10 famous online stars, zero of whom I’ve heard of. To me, YouTubers always have names that sound like MSN Messenger handles, stuff like Fruit-Nut and Palzone and Kevin the Rotator. Anyway, lining up to compete in Would You Rather we have King Kenny, Bambino Becky, Stephen Tries, Elz the Witch and Chunkz, as well as some others I didn’t write down because I had to lie down.
The show’s full name is Would You Rather: Decide to Survive (Prime Video, from 26 June), which is misleadingly hardcore. I assumed it would be an offshoot of SAS: Who Dares Wins. I expected scaffolders shimmying down gym ropes, enhanced interrogation, people getting dysentery after drinking from rivers. And, well, it is a mostly physical elimination contest, hosted by Romesh Ranganathan. Two teams face off, but in ludicrous challenges inspired by a staple of leisurely conversation: Would you rather X or Y?
You’ve played this at school, in the pub, on a country walk. In its pure form, it’s a provocative barrage of thought experiments: would you rather fight a man-sized horse or a horse-sized man? Would you rather have glass hands or concrete feet? Would you rather sweat milk or poo seashells? Banter-wise, it’s closely related to “Would you do X for £1m?”. Except there’s often no good option, no cool million at the end. Only trenchfoot and a raw anus.
The game designers have enjoyed realising the absurd. One dilemma – would you rather be slippery or sticky? – leads to an obstacle course that must be conquered, with one team coated head to toe in lube and the other stuck to the track with Velcro bodysuits. There are giant inflatables. Disgusting fluids are gargled. Nostalgic, adult sports day-coded horseplay is a core part of human expression. This show was once Gladiators, Get Your Own Back with Dave Benson Phillips, or It’s a Knockout. Every generation walks the path. Sometimes in foam hooves.
Would You Rather is almost designed to be double-screened. Even better, talked through. The parallel game, naturally, is viewers asking themselves what they would choose. How would you sort tiddlywinks by colour while wearing a kaleidoscopic fly-mask? If the dilemmas were broadcast live on terrestrial TV, this would be a definite “press the red or yellow button on your remote” situation. Thanks to the rise of on-demand streamers such as Amazon, that technology was short-lived. But you know what? The YouTubers are likable, particularly Chunkz. That guy is funny.
Contestants are split into Team This and Team That – which is so low-effort it’s almost avant garde. They seem to be filming outside tin shacks in the desert, but it could also be a disused quarry in Penrhyn. The whole show looks like it cost £420. After an apparently innocuous round of starter questions, contestants have to live with their hard choices – choosing exclusively between a mattress or duvet, a toothbrush or toothpaste. That’s another thing about getting older: if I was on this show I’d actively be trying to get eliminated, to get a decent night’s sleep.
Ranganathan is always great value, dry and sharp as a cactus, even though there’s the sense here he’s on autopilot. With this and The Weakest Link, he has extended a bulging CV of standup, travelogues, books, rapping and podcasts. I wonder if his auto email responder is a copy-paste of the word YES. Still, don’t knock the hustle.
If we’re making IP based off idle chit-chat, I want to be in the conversation. How about The Icks Factor – a show in which people confess their list of turn-offs, then have to do those exact things in public? Or Blindfold I Spy, where both players guess what things are by feel? No, I’ve got it. An undercover reality show, in which married people unexpectedly meet a celebrity on their “free pass” shag list? And their partner gets to watch them flirt on a hidden camera? That’s gold. Don’t do it without me, TV producers! Would you rather make a million together, or drag this thing through the courts?
