With its celebrities disguised as unicorns and giant ducks, this bizarre singing contest has proved a huge hit in the US. Now it has designs on the UK
Modern Toss on The Masked Singer
From the personal boundary-decimating blancmange that was Mr Blobby to a satin-clad Ann Widdecombe being dragged across the dancefloor to the strains of Wild Thing, Saturday night TV has long been built on inanity, ridiculousness and highly disconcerting fever dream sequences. But this month the schedules are destined to become that little bit more hallucinatory thanks to The Masked Singer, a show that makes that time Dale Winton forced celebrities to hurl themselves through holes in a giant foam wall seem like an entirely rational and restrained way to entertain a nation.
A fur-coated Frankenstein’s monster of a format, The Masked
Singer takes a cast of celebrities and conceals their identity behind elaborate and frequently terrifying animal costumes. These disguised celebs then have to sing before a panel of (also) celebrity detectives, who are tasked with divining the star behind the disguise. In each episode, via a complex judging process, one contestant is unmasked to squeals of frenzied excitement. Essentially, Saturday night TV is about to be filled with the sight of a giant rubber duck performing Like a Virgin in a conical bra, as Jonathan Ross, Davina McCall, Rita Ora and The Hangover star Ken Jeong make wild, baseless guesses about the bird’s true identity. And if versions of the show that have already aired in
Thailand,
Mexico,
France or the US – where it was the highest-rated show on network TV last year – are anything to go by, it is likely to be a smash.