Gary Lineker will never be Mr Saturday Night

“What have I signed up for?” Jenny Ryan – better known as The Vixen from The Chase – asks herself. She’s confined to a yellow metal box, just big enough for one person to stand in, and any moment now, the doors will open to… who knows? For this is The Box and she could be anywhere, about to face any challenge be it physical, mental, or a combination of both. I’m sure her fellow celebrity contestants are asking themselves the same question. But perhaps none more than the show’s host, Gary Lineker. On paper, The Box sounds frankly awful. A cast of C- and D-list celebs, including former Speaker of the House John Bercow, presenter Ranvir Singh and – surprise, surprise – Joey Essex, are placed in boxes and then taken to various locations (a castle, a racecourse, a church) to take on various challenges. In the opening episode, for example, they are dropped in the middle of a sprawling industrial state and tasked with finding a small yellow hexagon each. In the next one, their boxes open onto a stage and they are given an hour to come up with a performance for a battle of the bands challenge. In reality, though, it’s actually quite fun. The celebrities live together for the duration of the show, giving us a Traitors-esque insight into their tactics and backstabbing (whoever is on the winning team must decide who to put up for elimination), and the unpredictable “anything can happen” nature of the challenges keeps you wanting more. There’s just one thing dragging the energy down: Lineker. As a presenter, he’s surplus to requirements on The Box. One of the best features of the show is that the celebrities aren’t given instructions on how to carry out their tasks, and Lineker isn’t allowed to give them any clues. Mostly, his role is to watch the chaos unfold alongside us, commentating and quipping on the stupidity – or genius – of the celebs. But he just looks awkward doing so, always looking off to he side of the camera, as if checking with the producer: “Am I doing it right?” Why would Lineker want to host an ITV gameshow? (Photo: Twofour/ITV) He relies on tired football clichés (“this has gone to injury time”) and has a tendency to over-egg what he’s watching. “This has restored my faith in human beings,” he beams… while watching the celebrities partake in an egg and spoon race. During the battle of the bands performance, he seems reluctant – embarrassed, even – to stand up with the audience and clap along. It’s completely out of step with the contestants’ attitude, who will seemingly do anything in the name of entertainment. This isn’t Lineker’s first rodeo when it comes to hosting a gameshow: between 2021 and 2023 he hosted Sitting on a Fortune for ITV, a more traditional general knowledge quiz for civilians. In a studio environment and with a structured format, he was a fine – bordering on good – host, and he says the only reason the show was cancelled was because ITV ended up giving away too much prize money. It’s a different story on The Box. We like Lineker for his measured approach to presenting. He’s level-headed, trustworthy and serious when he needs to be – none of which are qualities demanded by a Saturday night gameshow. He simply doesn’t have the energy or pizzazz needed to make The Box unmissable television. In the year since he left the BBC, Lineker has mostly stuck to what he knows: football and podcasts. There was the inevitable move to Netflix, bringing a version of his uber-popular podcast The Rest is Football to the streamer just in time for the World Cup (which, despite being rather awful, has been renewed to cover the current Premier League season). Behind the scenes, his podcast production company Goalhanger has been raking it in to the tune of £37.9m last year and has been named the fastest growing company in the UK. With such success, the question is: why on Earth would he want to host a Saturday night game show? One would hope that it isn’t for the cash. Maybe he just wants a job that doesn’t get him in trouble, one that he can relax into and have fun with. But if he’s having fun on The Box, I certainly can’t tell. ‘The Box’ starts tonight at 8.15pm on ITV