Considering its relatively low profile this time round, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Winter Love Island is back on our screens next week, which means the love lives, social dynamics and inevitable code languages of a bunch of twenty-somethings will be taking over our lives for a full six weeks.
It’s undoubtedly the biggest reality show on telly, but that hasn’t stopped the same criticisms doing the rounds year after year. One such complaint is that, despite empty promises to increase diversity among that cast, it’s the same gym honed, blonde haired whipper-snappers we’re seeing enter the villa every series, and while it can be compelling to watch beautiful people fall in love, it does all start to feel a bit monotonous after a while, doesn’t it?
And now one of the biggest broadcast personalities in the game, Davina McCall, has made an open call for a Love Island-esque show catering to an all-together more different demographic of singles, admitting she’s ‘begging’ ITV to let her host a show to help the mid-lifers find love.
'I could fill a villa in Love Island with middle-aged people with the best back stories you have ever heard in your life,' she said on a recent episode of Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett, who also famously interviewed Love Island’s most successful alumni, Molly-Mae Hague.
'They've lived a life – they're widows, they're people who have been through horrific divorces. They are people who have split up with somebody and decided they want to try going out with somebody the same sex as them.
'They're like interesting people. I'd watch that show.'
She’s not wrong – a villa full of older, wiser, DGAF singles would make for incredible viewing, and hammer home the point that love isn’t just a privilege for the aesthetically blessed among us.
And according to Davina’s comments later in the interview, her idea could be closer to fruition than we think, because ITV confirmed they were ‘looking at something else that's quite similar’ and ‘might consider [her] for that.’
Another TV obsession to take over our summers? We’ll take it.
A source for ITV told The Sun last year, ‘Times change and the current generation in their 40s and 50s still care about how they look, are fit and healthy, into fashion and are ready to let their hair down. This show will give those who settled down young a second chance at love while they still feel in their prime.'