Dom Joly the comedian??? I have no idea who he is but the people at Comic Relief assure me that he is a star so that’s good enough for me.

Tonight on Let’s Dance Dom danced to MC Hammer track ‘You Can’t Touch This’, baggy trousers and all.

It seems that the comedians are excelling in this show, already through to the final are Robert Webb and Jo Brand. I imagine Dom will be following in their footsteps, he was hilarious on stage and the outrageous gold outfit was almost as funny as the dancing.

Zoe Ball & Suggs, Dom Joly, sports stars Martin Offiah and Denise Lewis, The Bill actors Lisa Maxwell and Patrick Robinson, Fern Britton and Angela Rippon will all appear in the third heat of Let’s Dance For Comic Relief this Saturday night on BBC One.

Lisa Snowdon and Dara O’Briain will be guest panellists alongside head panellist Anton Du Beke.

In the final, Anton will be joined by guest panellists Denise Van Outen and Michael McIntyre who is back by popular demand.

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Dom Joly has taken a swing at the ITV reality show, Deadline in which he and a crew of other ‘celebs’ had to run a magazine. On The Independent website, he claims that the show was completely fake and about as detatched from reality as it could possibly be.

He acknowledges that reality TV is staged to some extent (something I think most of us accept), but that Deadline took the biscuit:

The “editorial team” of judges had clearly been told to act as though they’d just taken control of a classroom of window lickers and boy, did they love it. It was big-swinging-dick time from day one. The fact that no one with an ounce of grey matter nor a shred of dignity would remain in any “real” magazine that functioned in this sub-soap-opera manner didn’t deter our troika of “experts”. For instance, it was somewhat odd to be scolded for the quality of a one-line caption for a photograph of troubled glamour-bint Jasmine Lennard, on the same day that I had a five-page spread in The Independent.

For me though, his recounting of a conversation with a location director is particularly interesting:

“Reality TV is basically seduce and betray,” he said as I bought him another double brandy. “We give you celebs limos and fancy hotels, stylists, food and alcohol and then we stitch you up to look like morons for telly.”

Joly’s account of working on Deadline is an excellent insight into the world of reality telly from the perspective of a contestant. Definitely worth a look.