Fancy a five-star trip to Qatar ahead of this month’s World Cup? Don’t mind if I do.
What about bunging in a bit of brand promotion and turning it into a TV show for extra dosh? Jolly good show…
It’s a benchmark of popularity when any TV commissioner will take your show concept, however self-indulgent it is.
This week was a prime example of that, as Thursday night on Sky saw the arrival of Jamie and Harry’s World Cup Challenge: Got, Got, Need.
The brains behind this project is comedian Jack Whitehall, who’s clearly taken his Travels With My Father format and given it a World Cup twist.
In episode one, Jack meets Jamie out in Qatar to set up the series challenge.
“Oi oi, Redders,” he booms in a faux EastEnder accent, before randomly navigating the conversation towards collecting football stickers as a kid and declaring: “I challenge you to do a real-life football album. I’ll give you 11 days to meet 11 World Cup superstars.”
But before Jamie’s famous dad Harry is drafted in to help, the lads jump in a Mercedes and go on a detour.
Stop one is Qatar’s brand new Lusail Stadium, which will host 90,000 fans in just a few weeks.
Stop two is to meet Holland’s Ruud Gullit – the owner of football’s most iconic moustache. Jamie gets him to sign a football for his day one challenge.
But the next destination – to check out horse sperm at a Qatar training ground – feels like a completely pointless diversion.
“If the horses live close to each other, are they ‘neigh-bours’?” jokes Jamie.
Then for the world’s most unsubtle brand alert: “I’ve heard that you had quite a lot of injuries?” asks the woman showing Jamie around.
“And now he sells trainers,” Jack adds. “You’ve heard of Skechers, right?” Jamie replies, on cue. Jamie finally jets home to enlist dad Harry with the challenge for day two. But he must have jumped through a time portal to get there so quickly because, with the seven-hour flight time and all that faffing, there’s no way he’d be sticking to the challenge in real time.
Superstar number two is Sir Geoff Hurst, who you have to applaud for being a good sport. Harry and Jamie nab him while he’s on stage giving a talk.
Needless to say, Geoff’s acting skills aren’t a patch on his 1966 World Cup Final hat-trick, as he feigns surprise to see the lads turn up.
The third soccer star they track down in a clothes shop – brand alert again – is none other than Harry Kane, who again, is a master on the pitch but wouldn’t win any prizes for his chat.
While so much of the TV build-up has been far more serious – and focused on Qatar’s atrocious human rights record – this will no doubt leave football fans green with envy.
I’m just not sure how much more of the lads banter I can stomach…
