‘What have I signed up for?’ wondered contestant Jenny Ryan early in proceedings on ITV’s The Box. It’s a question that might be more germanely asked by the show’s host Gary Lineker.
A long time ago, American comedian Fred Allen said that ‘Television is a device that permits people who haven’t anything to do to watch people who can’t do anything’. I always thought this was a harsh judgement. But The Box proves that Allen was simply ahead of his time.
This is what Lineker has chosen to do in the downtime when he’s not sharing his thoughts on Israel, or raking in millions from his podcast empire
It is a game show – at least I think that’s what it is – fronted by the FA Cup-eared crisp masticator, now retired from his vital work on Match Of The Day. This is what Lineker has chosen to do in the downtime when he’s not sharing his thoughts on Israel, or raking in millions from his podcast empire.
You’d think that a show called The Box would be something to do with a box, the same way that Phillip Schofield’s The Cube was centred very much around a cube. In fact, The Box features not one but many boxes, big and small, but they are nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with the matter in hand. What is the matter in hand? I’m still not sure.
