Love Island

Synopsis

A hit from unpromising beginnings. Originally, it was Celebrity Love Island: 12 "celebrities" (so reckon on having heard of three), four weeks on an island, challenged to do stuff. But not very much. Whatever they called this particular variation on the theme, you basically knew what you were getting.

Every night, the contestants were seen pampering themselves, drinking alcohol, and soaking up the sun. Challenges on the show were thin. Some days, the public would vote for two of the contestants to be exiled from the remainder of the group and spend a couple of days with each other for company. On other days, the public was invited to remove people from the group, so that the series would end with one gentleman and one lady winner. Some nights, the most entertaining aspect was the way Patrick Kielty's ad-libs wound up co-host Kelly Brook.

The show was deliberately designed and scheduled as an ITV spoiler against Big Brother's 6th series. It suffered from opposition amongst the chattering classes, and initially failed to attract many viewers, but ITV stuck with the series to the planned end, and it eventually turned into a modest ratings success.

We were still surprised when the series returned the following summer, albeit under a new title. Love Island featured contestants who weren't celebrities when they left, and featured a new co-host. However, the slight magic of the first outing wasn't repeated and in November 2006 it was announced that the series had been axed.

And there we hoped it would remain, a footnote to two of the balmiest and barmiest summers of recent memory. Then ITV2 filled a large gap in its schedules with a new run of Love Island, this time with people who didn't even claim to be celebrities. It's six weeks of this in Mallorca or six weeks of Big Brother.

Much was right about the revival: witty narration by Iain Stirling, beautiful shots of a swimming pool the size of a small county, a contemporary soundtrack written for the show. But the pace remained forced to meet the producers' needs, and the series ended in confusion - it asked the winning contestants to take the Prisoner's Dilemma, to split or steal the prize money.

Champions

2005: Fran Cosgrave and Jayne Middlemiss
2006: Calum Best and Bianca Gascoigne
2015: Max Morley and Jess Hayes
2016: Nathan Massey and Cara De La Hoyde
2017: Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies
2018: Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer
2019: Greg O'Shea and Amber Gill

Theme music

First series: "Wish I" by Jem, from the album Finally Woken.

Second series: "From Fiji With Love" by Daniel Pemberton, available on his album TVPOPMUZIK.

A-Mnemonic wrote a full score for the 2015 series.

Trivia

The twelve competing in the first series were, in alphabetical order: Calum Best, Fran Cosgrave, Paul Danan, Michael Greco, Lady Isabella Hervey, Du'aine Ladejo, Rebecca Loos, Liz McClarnon, Jayne Middlemiss, Lee Sharpe, Judi Shekoni, Abi Titmuss. Competitors in the second series were: Sophie Anderton, Chris Brosnan, Kelle Bryan, Brendan Cole, Alicia Douvall, Bianca Gascoigne, Lady Victoria Hervey, Leo Ihenacho, Shane Lynch, Lee Otway and Colleen Shannon. Various guests were flown in to spice things up including series one's Paul Danan and Jackass star Steve-O (who quit after two days).

The second series was subject to some wonderful criticism from the continuity announcers of UTV (the ITV station in Northern Ireland). Robin Taylor would frequently introduce the show along the line of quotes like: Now get ready for unintentional comedy from the Love Island!, whilst chief announcer Julian Simmons regularly used his announcements to have a go at Sophie 'me-me-me' Anderton.

Voted the Worst New Show in this site's Poll of 2005

The American version of Love Island was broadcast on ITVBe in September and October 2019, followed almost immediately by the Australian version.

Three episodes of Love Island have been left unaired. The first, one day of the first series, was lost after a tropical storm hit the island. Another two from the first winter series, the first of which was an 'unseen bits' episode, was pulled following the death of Caroline Flack; the show returned two days later with a tribute to Flack. In addition, that day's Aftersun was left unrecorded.

Merchandise

Love Island The Game, by Ginger Fox. Probably not one to be played with yer nan.

See also

Weaver's Week reviews: 2006 and 2015

Web links

Current website

2006 website (from archive.org)

Wikipedia entries for original and revival

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