You cannot be Sirieix! Are we really sure there’s just one Fred? CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV

Ultimate Wedding Planner

Rating:

Henpocalypse!

Rating:

So that’s how he does it. Fred Sirieix, popping up on almost every TV channel this summer, has taken a tip from Vladimir Putin… and hired an array of dodgy doubles.

Fred was in Rome on Monday night for Remarkable Places To Eat. He’s currently filming more First Dates, there’s already another foul-mouthed road-trip with Gordon and Gino in the can, and on top of all that he’s a judge on Ultimate Wedding Planner (BBC2).

But look closely. His beard is white on this show, brown on that, speckled badger on the next. He’s grey-headed or mahogany quiffed, sporting a handlebar moustache or a prissy Poirot, with a slick Peaky Blinders cut in one shot and a shaven head in another… sometimes all in the same episode.

French plurals are tricky grammatical beasts, but it’s plain there’s a whole range of Les Freds. Is any of them the real thing, or are they all fakes?

ULTIMATE WEDDING PLANNER: The trainee planners are given £10,000 each week and told to organise a showpiece wedding – this time, a ‘millionaire’s garden party’ for two brides, Jodie and Lauren (pictured with Fred Sirieix, second from left)

ULTIMATE WEDDING PLANNER: Ten grand ought to be enough to put on a good do. But the planners ended up catering it themselves, preparing the food and serving the drinks, as well as building props such as chandeliers that dangled from wooden gallows

ULTIMATE WEDDING PLANNER: Some of the disasters were self-inflicted. Jodie and Lauren were adamant they wanted ‘nothing tacky’ — so the planners immediately set about building giant plywood letters smothered in flashing lights that spelled L-O-V-E

There’s only one way to be certain. Line them all up and eliminate them in turn with the cry, ‘You cannot be Sirieix!’

That would be more fun than Ultimate Wedding Planner, a reality competition so lifeless that none of the contestants even got knocked out this week.

Despite being uniformly useless, all six rivals were told to return and try again. So far, we’ve seen just one person dismissed, another quit because of homesickness, and now a complete cop-out by the judges. At this rate, the series will still be dragging on come Christmas.

But I’m betting there won’t be a second season. After three episodes, it’s obvious the format is a fix.

The trainee planners are given £10,000 each week and told to organise a showpiece wedding – this time, a ‘millionaire’s garden party’ for two brides, Jodie and Lauren, who met at a boxing gym.

Ten grand ought to be enough to put on a good do. But the planners ended up catering it themselves, preparing the food and serving the drinks, as well as building props such as chandeliers that dangled from wooden gallows.

It seems impossible that nobody thought to hire a chef or waiters. Either professional help was kept off screen, or the producers have put impossible restrictions in place, to ensure plenty of meltdowns and chaos.

Some of the disasters were self-inflicted. Jodie and Lauren were adamant they wanted ‘nothing tacky’ – so the planners immediately set about building giant plywood letters smothered in flashing lights that spelled L-O-V-E.

Former dancer Toby tried to create a champagne waterfall, with fizz cascading down a tower of glasses. But the goblets he picked were enormous – modelled, he insisted, on the breasts of Queen Marie Antoinette, who must have been quite a top-heavy girl.

HENPOCALYPSE! Danny Dyer supplied a two-minute cameo — easily the best thing about the show. That’s how rotten it is

HENPOCALYPSE! The pre-wedding party disaster epic Henpocalypse! (BBC2) made an apt pairing, not least because it also looks as though it was done on a £10K budget

HENPOCALYPSE! All the worst gags from last week — the sex toys on sticks, the bridesmaid with gangrene — were dragged around the block again

HENPOCALYPSE! The male stripper held hostage and chained to a radiator was threatening to do himself an injury with a plastic fork

With prosecco instead of champers, and not nearly enough bottles, the spectacle was pitiful and drippy… rather like this show.

The pre-wedding party disaster epic Henpocalypse! (BBC2) made an apt pairing, not least because it also looks as though it was done on a £10K budget. I’d hoped that, after a dreadful start, it might pick up. But every feeble joke is beaten to death, and then beaten some more. All the worst gags from last week – the sex toys on sticks, the bridesmaid with gangrene – were dragged around the block again.

The male stripper held hostage and chained to a radiator was threatening to do himself an injury with a plastic fork. It wasn’t funny the first time, but he did it twice more. By the end, I was feeling so sorry for the actor that it’s kinder not to name him.

Danny Dyer supplied a two-minute cameo – easily the best thing about the show. That’s how rotten it is.