Holly Willoughby’s awful show should’ve been Kitchen P**spot – it’s nailed on for worst of 2026 & lacks two main things

HOLLY WILLOUGHBY is very much a woman on the edge. Of what? I’m still not 100 per cent certain. Holly Willoughby, above with Joanne McNally, must have spent an awful lot of time watching Love Island as she no longer seems capable of speaking in proper sentences Credit: Youtube/Holly Willoughby Together Holly’s efforts on her new show would be nailed on for The Worst Show of 2026, if it wasn’t occupying the grey area of YouTube Credit: Youtube/Holly Willoughby Together But she definitely isn’t on the edge of asking a decent question, or being invited to give the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival. At least, not on the evidence of her new show Holly Willoughby Together, which has been available to view for nearly three weeks now, on YouTube. An invitation viewers have resisted in heroic numbers despite naughty-come-hithers like: “Holly Willoughby teaches you toad-in-the-hole from scratch.” A culinary masterclass that, last time I looked, had been seen by just 6,600 hardy souls. I don’t have the luxury of avoiding these things, of course. However, in the interests of fairness, a principle this column must pretend to ­follow, I’ve largely left Holly Willoughby Together alone, so the show could find some sort of rhythm, point and maybe even a few viewers. But that’s clearly not going to happen now, so let’s start by saying Holly Willoughby Together is a fantastically inappropriate name for an enterprise based entirely on old This Morning segments, where they very clearly haven’t got anything together. Kitchen P**spot would’ve been more accurate, given Holly’s at such pains to let us know she likes to drink and swear, or better still, Holly Willoughby: Talk Amongst Yourselves. No matter how you package it, though, Holly’s efforts would be nailed on for The Worst Show of 2026, if it wasn’t occupying the grey area of YouTube. For it is a uniquely awful and amateurish venture with nothing to recommend it beyond the fantastically blank look on Holly’s face when actor Stanley Tucci started trying to explain the Italian unification of 1861, while ­making deep-fried courgettes with pasta, on show one. Mind you, the expression of startlement that tried to form across Katherine Ryan’s rigid features, a week later, when Holly asked her “What’s your favourite cheese?” was also pretty special. But I’m going to let that one ride, because it was at least a proper question. They’re not Holly’s strong point, you see. Maybe they never were. But during the 22-month hiatus since she left This Morning, I’m going to guess Holly’s spent an awful lot of time watching Love Island as she no longer seems capable of speaking in proper sentences. Or at least, not ones that come to a point and don’t include at least four “likes” and an “I mean”. The girl can gush like the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, though, telling comedian Joanne McNally: “I’m beyond excited you’re here. You know how much I love you. I love you, like, you and Vogue Williams are just, like, the best things ever, I think. “I mean, individually you’re wonderful. Your tour was, like, so brilliant I honestly, like, go and watch this woman. She’s just amazing.” Which was quite an introduction, given they were due to spend the next 45 minutes talking about tracksuits. Schofield would’ve dug Holly out of these holes, of course. But she’s got no sidekick here and very little format. It’s just Holly and a toad-in-the-hole. Or worse, just Holly and Katherine Ryan where things got so grim they ended up playing Shag Marry Avoid with Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe. A game where, had the gender roles been reversed, the two male presenters would’ve ended up being cancelled and banned from public life for ever. This week, as part of her cookery feature, the production team also wheeled out a sausage-making machine which has been a suggestive and winning feature of British light entertainment since the days when Brucie was bossing The Generation Game, first time around. On Holly Willoughby Together, though? It just looked like a distress flare, an admission of defeat, a holding segment for her OnlyFans career. Why’s she putting herself through this torment then? Well, judging by the horrendous amount of name-dropping and butt-kissing going on, I’d guess that Holly is genuinely seduced by fame and loves being in the public eye. She’s so wrapped up in ­herself and showbusiness, in fact, that Together is the first lifestyle/chat show I think I’ve ever watched where the guests always end up asking the host questions. Never was it more tellingly done than when Joanne McNally asked Holly: “Have you ever worked in a hair salon.” “No,” came the rather sharp reply. Give it time, though. UNEXPECTED MORONS IN THE BAGGING AREA TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: “Mistletoe And Wine was a 1988 Christmas number one single for which British singer?” Colin: “The Pogues.” The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which of the UK’s Armed Forces was founded at the Hotel Cecil in London in 1918?” Ellie: “Raffles.” And Bradley Walsh: “What Welsh mountain is the principal massif in the Snowdonia mountains?” Sandra: “I want to say Ben Nevis.” Please don’t. RANDOM TV IRRITATIONS SUNDAY’S impenetrable episode of Van Der Valk. Fifty-five-year-old ex- EastEnder John Partridge wearing a vest to appear on Good Morning Britain. The once serious Newsnight interviewing an effing drag queen about the economy. And claret-ravaged LBC host James O’Brien trying to work out why he keeps getting conned by charlatans, like Jason Arday and Carl Beech, but failing to conclude it’s because Britain’s crackpot community has sussed out he’s so blinded by political prejudices he’ll swallow any old fairytale, just so long as it’s a left-wing one. Thereby guaranteeing it’ll happen again and again and again. CORK IS TRULY POPPED Martin and Roman Kemp’s Irish Road Trip is a repetition of Julia Bradbury’s Irish Journey THERE isn’t a square inch of planet Earth which hasn’t now been colonised by over-exposed C-list celebrities filming travelogues for British television. Korea, Cambodia, America, the Med, Chieveley services at Junction 13 on the M4. Nowhere has suffered more, though, than Ireland, with the latest incursion coming from Martin and Roman Kemp’s Irish Road Trip. A three-part Channel 4 series, this one, which began not just on the same stretch of the County Cork coastline as another network venture, Julia Bradbury’s Irish Journey, but with exactly the same kayaking instructor, Jim Kennedy, who must spend 90 per cent of his life giving health and safety briefings to British TV crews. From there it was but a short paddle to Cobh ­Harbour’s Titanic Exhibition, recently vacated by Susan Calman and Jane McDonald, before Martin and Roman headed to an old prison on Cork’s Spike Island, which will soon be overrun by Richard E Grant, Tom ­Kerridge, Alexander ­Armstrong and the rest of the gang. The production team is aware of the sin of repetition, of course, so it’s attempted to attach a ghosties and ghoulies theme to this trek. With the emphasis very much on the second part of that ­equation at the ancient Drombeg Stone Circle, where an Irish folklorist called Dr Jenny Butler painted this vivid picture for the Kemps. “Some people have said they see fertility symbols, an erect penis with testicles, in one of the portal stones.” A monstrous, pulsing apparition that, so legend claims, cannot be ever shrivelled or subdued. Until the day BBC2 starts filming Miriam ­Margolyes: Lost In ­Ireland, which should kill its throb for ever. Column returns August 28. FURTHERMORE, Celebrity Hunted, Ray Howard: “It’s got difficult to predict what Jen Brister and Laura Smyth will do next.” Really? Some old s**t at the Edinburgh Festival and a panel show would be my guess. LOOKALIKE OF THE WEEK Celebrity Hunted fugitive Jen Brister, left, and Hank Marvin from The Shadows, right THIS­ week’s winner is Celebrity Hunted fugitive Jen Brister, who identifies as a comedian, and Hank Marvin, from The Shadows. Sent in by J Scott, of Dundee. GREAT SPORTING INSIGHTS MICHAEL ATHERTON: “The players and coaches have ­single-handedly turned things around.” Mark Butcher: “Chris Woakes ended up with his arm in a sling last time he died.” And Nasser Hussain: “They need to keep doing what they didn’t do last time.” (Compiled by Graham Wray) BENIDORM Is Murder, Dennis: “What do a murder and a crap comedian have in common?” Series two of Broadchurch, with Lenny Henry? TV GOLD BBC4 screening vintage episodes of Mastermind, with Magnus Magnusson, from 1977 is TV gold Credit: Alamy Stock Photo DIANE MORGAN’S Ann Droid, on BBC One, which will be vying for the title of 2026’s Best Comedy with Mackenzie Crook’s Small Prophets. Channel 4’s Spy Next Door: The Anna Chapman Story. Murder Trial: Death Of A Dog Walker, on BBC2. And BBC4 screening vintage episodes of Mastermind, with Magnus Magnusson, from 1977. A time when the contestants were all impeccably polite, respectful and well-dressed, and quiz shows weren’t overrun by people so thick that, in the immortal words of Weakest Link host Romesh Ranganathan: “They’d feed bread to their toilet duck.” I miss the old version of Britain more and more with every ­passing year. GREAT TV LIES AND ­DELUSIONS OF THE WEEK The Big Deal, Steph ­McGovern: “This is going to be fun.” Good Morning Britain, Kate Garraway to Kerry Katona and Terry Christian: “Don’t go anywhere because we love you too much.” And Secret Lives Of Gypsy Wives, Trewley Precious ­taking ages to get ready for a night out: “I cannot be ­beautiful and on time.” Clearly, so just be on time. THE Big Deal with Steph McGovern, on BBC2, is a lame art-dealing Apprentice task that got out of hand, and began with a barrage of alliteration from the host. “Can you hawk a Hockney? Can you bargain a Banksy? Can you peddle a Picasso?” Can we stop this naming bollocks? Before she reaches Jackson Pollock’s? Click. Yes we can. TV expert of the week appears courtesy of UK’s Strongest Man, on Channel 5. Katie Shanahan: “What is the technique for a good car hold?” Lucy Underdown: “You’ve got to pick the car up and hold on to it.” Thank you, Lucy.