Bushell on the Box, TV Review: comedians made The Brits and The Oscars unbearable but nothing can save Meghan’s latest glossy dog’s dinner of a lifestyle show.

Sabrina Carpenter sparked more than 800 OfCom complaints (Image: Getty)

In 1970, Women Liberation activists hurled flour bombs and rotten fruit at the great Bob Hope for co-hosting Miss World, accusing the event of “exploiting women”. What would those early feminists make of The Brit Awards 2025? Screened pre-watershed by ITV last weekend, the Brits opened with Sabrina Carpenter’s female dancers, clad in underwear and suspenders, flashing their gussets like Soho strippers. Talented Sabrina then ended her routine by sliding suggestively down a ‘guardsman’. Pop blurred into soft porn before our eyes without a single mouldy plum being slung. Progress?

At least 1970’s Miss World, Miss Grenada, kept her dignity.

Jack Whitehall might not be everybody’s cup of Earl Grey splosh, but he did well, delivering decent jokes in front of TV’s rowdiest and most inebriated audience. Jack told KSI his Britain’s Got Talent role was “like Stephen Hawking judging Strictly”, and said heavily tattooed Teddy Swims (who came dressed as a duvet) had “the voice of an angel and the face of a primary school desk”.

BRITS 2025: Danny Dyer muted by Jack Whitehall in expletive rant

Looking at Sam Ryder, he quipped, “Someone brought their drug dealer”. Well, it was Charli’s night.

ITV muted Danny Dyer, which begs the question why book him in the first place? And why did Jack ask him to swear? In drink, Dyer usually effs and blind like he’s in a contest with Gordon Ramsay and Malcolm Tucker.

Several winners spoke out about the need to keep youth clubs and independent clubs alive. Good. TV could play a part too by resurrecting music shows. Why not create a 2025 equivalent of The Old Grey Whistle Test or The Tube? Promising bands abound and Jools Holland misses most of them.

Comedian and late-night TV alumni Conan O’Brien hosted this year’s Oscars. He started by bursting out of Demi Moore’s stomach (a pre-recorded skit inspired by Oscar-nominated horror film Substance), and then went back in for his shoe. “Hi Demi, how are you?” he said, as he walked onstage afterwards. “That was weird. Awkward, I’m missing some keys…”

The big winner was Anora – a film about a sex worker Cinderella who weds a Russian oligarch’s son. Conan quipped, “I guess Americans are excited to see someone finally stand up to a strong Russian” – a neat pot-shot at the POTUS.

He also teased Timothée Chalamet about his bright yellow suit – “You won’t get hit on your bike tonight”.

Bob Hope, that man again, accurately called the Academy Awards a “farcical charade of vulgar egotism and pomposity”. Nothing has changed, but having a decent comic at the helm, rather than actors or lightweight autocue readers, makes the over-long, puffed-up love-in bearable. ITV’s neatly trimmed Oscars Highlights helped as well. There were tears, courtesy Zoe Saldana, and politics – “Slava Ukraini!” shouted Daryl Hannah; plus pleas for displaced Palestinians.

Hats off to self-effacing Londoner Daniel Blumberg, winner of Best Score for The Brutalist, and formerly of indie rockers Cajun Dance Party.

Despite renouncing the royal family, the Sussexes continue to mine their regal links for Netflix lucre. I liked Meghan at first and hoped the Markle Sparkle would become a permanent fixture in our lives. Sadly, the Duchess failed to understand the difference between royalty and celebrity. She’s hoping to end the cosseted couple’s run of streaming flops (Polo, Live To Lead) with her new cooking and lifestyle series With Love, Meghan. The resulting dog’s dinner is glossy and laugh-out-loud trite, with all the substance of the Boleyn ghost coach.

Former actress Megs smiles sweetly as she explains that even we peasants could recreate her style “on a budget”. (On her budget anyone could…it cost enough to make Keir Starmer’s travel bills look like pocket change.) But with revelations like “You don’t need to sift sugar”, it felt like Meghan was teaching beginner’s cookery to a class of semi-sentient garden gnomes.

Sadly, Megs, working parents with trains and buses to catch might not have time to serve children fruit in “a perfect rainbow” each morning, or carve strawberries, or cut sandwiches into “interesting shapes”. And what child swoons over party bags filled with herb seeds anyway?

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Disney’s Daredevil Reborn will delight fans of comic book noir but Steven Knight’s punchy A 1000 Blows struggles with history. Britain abolished slavery in 1807 and ended it fully in Jamaica in 1838. So why make it an issue in 1884? An action drama celebrating the Royal Navy sinking the slave trade would be more positive and genuinely inspirational. But maybe that would embarrass the Yanks, who took decades to follow suit.

Finally, the late Cockney comedian Mike Reid popped up in a 1974 episode of The Wheeltappers & Shunters’ Social Club (TPTV) and asked Bernard Manning, “Ever thought of lacing your mouth up and using it as a football?” Ouch. On terrestrial TV, Would I Lie To You has ended, and there is only one more episode of Amandaland. Who’ s going to make us laugh now?