Eamonn Holmes
Eamonn Holmes

Eamonn Holmes

  • Northern Irish
  • Presenter and journalist

Press clippings Page 2

ITV clearly has big hopes for this reboot of the long-running celebrity home-invasion panel show. Both Vernon Kay and Paul O'Grady were reportedly in the running to spend their Saturday evenings rummaging through the drawers of the great, the good and the goadawful. Then ITV decided to split the difference, handing the task over to Leigh Francis's high-achieving alter-ego, gurning Northern malapropism-merchant Keith 'Ooosh!' Lemon.

And, love him, loathe him or remain in a state of semi-ignorant bafflement, Lemon is clearly in his element here, rifling through the pads of an Olympian (naturally), a couple of boy band refugees (jolly) and a former Deputy Prime Minister (oh, John...) while Dave Berry, Martine McCutcheon and Eamonn Holmes - who in the ITV-verse counts as a sage elder statesman - attempt to riddle out whose house is whose. In essence, it's a quizzed-up Cribs for crinklies.

Compared to much of the shiny-floored crunk that ITV (and, indeed, the BBC) has been pumping out of late, Through the Keyhole, or, as Keith has it Fruit'keyhole, is a fairly decent stab at bouncy Saturday evening fun. Decent enough, in fact, to make one wonder why it's been shunted back to 9.20 just to make room for a few F-bombs and other assorted bleeped out swears. This has got 7.30 - and therefore bigger ratings - written all over it.

Adam Lee Davies, Time Out, 31st August 2013

Given the success of gloriously trashy dating programme Take Me Out, it's no surprise to see its presenter Paddy McGuinness at the reins of this equally cheesy panel show. Comedians Rhys Darby and Rufus Hound head two celebrity-packed teams for a light-hearted quiz based on news stories and TV clips from across the globe. This week's motley crew include comic Stephen K. Amos, This Morning host Eamonn Holmes and ditzy X Factor graduate Stacey Solomon.

Toby Dantzic, The Telegraph, 3rd August 2012

A good week for sharp writing included Alan Partridge: Welcome To The Places Of My Life wherein Steve Coogan's chat chump took us on a personal tour which included his radio station ("My coalface, my canvas, my lathe"), the fitness centre ("A diet of Tracker Bars means I'm able to lead the kind of physically active life that's simply out of reach for many men my age such as Eamonn Holmes") and his favourite beauty-spot ("For some Thetford Forest means dogging and suicide but I'm old-school and I'm off for a walk!").

Aidan Smith, The Scotsman, 1st July 2012

Ruth Jones's Welsh sitcom ambles on pleasantly but uneventfully in this third episode. The death of a local rugby legend promises to revive ailing fortunes when a lavish funeral is planned. Most of the humour revolves around the fact that his name was 'Dick', an innuendo that's repeated way too many times even before guest star Neil Kinnock gets saddled with it during his speech (his performance is fine, mind you - they have the sense to put him behind a lectern where he's at home). Eamonn Holmes also appears in a tailor-made Sky News broadcast, but other than that this is decidedly unremarkable and never hilarious. Still, props for having a hot younger guy, Sean (Kenny Doughty) mooning after Jones's mumsy character, rather than the other way around.

Anna Smith, Time Out, 20th January 2012

Don't expect any Eamonn Holmes jokes in this series.

Last year the BBC had to issue a formal apology after sketches showed him eating the studio furniture and he took the view that imitation wasn't the sincerest form of flattery at all.

But Eamonn would be old news anyway, in impression terms. The key here is topicality, and Hilary Devey and Tulisa are just two of the new faces as Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson return for a third series.

The pair are superb mimics and it's a pleasant half-hour ticking off all the celebs you recognise.

Culshaw completely nails the way former MP Ann Widdecombe's voice keeps wandering off into that strange falsetto and Stephenson's Alex Jones is spot on.

It's just a pity the writers aren't keeping up their end of the bargain by giving them funnier material to get their teeth into.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 26th October 2011

The first Comedy Lab pilot is this sketch show starring Anna Crilly and Katy Wix, which also featured guest appearances from Lee Mack and Eamonn Holmes. While I wanted to avoid using the cliché of sketch shows being 'hit and miss', I though that this show was... well, you can guess.

One problem I have with this show is that the ideas appear to be limited. They had a bunch of sketches in the first half, and the characters and situations were just repeated in the second half. I certainly don't mind recurring characters in sketch shows over the course of a series, but, to me, repeating them in the same episode is rather lazy.

Sketches include a pair of women living in a flat owned by a goat, a German hospital soap opera with lots of fake slapping, and day time show Congratulation! in which the two women give a 'Congratulation' to people over the trivial things, and give the biggest congratulation by displaying their censored vaginas.

However, there were bits I liked. One of the characters was a nervous woman giving out awards at a village fete. While she, on the whole, was one of the weaker characters, the preposterous sight of a cake in the shape of a swastika did make laugh. Also there was Holmes's game show Pointer, a Weakest Link parody in which people hold out very stiff arms and point out who they want eliminating. Then there were the women who were obsessed with measuring anything, including the distance their uncle had to be from a primary school.

This show does have potential. All they need to do is sort out the wheat from the chaff and utilise the best sketches to their advantage.

Ian Wolf, Giggle Beats, 5th September 2011

Despite a slightly awkward format, this vehicle for the likeable Liverpudlian comic pulled in decent ratings of 4.2m when it debuted last year, hence this second series. It sees Bishop perform a stand-up set based on a theme, interweaving his own observations with input from celebrity guests and members of the public. Tonight he tackles music and fashion, telling tales of gig-going and style crimes. Eamonn Holmes and Freddie Flintoff confess their guilty musical pleasures, while MasterChef's Gregg "The Egg" Wallace shows why he belongs in the kitchen, not on the dancefloor.

Michael Hogan, The Telegraph, 29th July 2011

Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson interview

Now that they're back for another series of their Impressions Show, we gave Debra Stephenson and Jon Culshaw a ring to chat about the impersonating business, Eamonn Holmes's less-than-thrilled reaction to their send-up of him, and why Lady GaGa takes fashion advice from them...

Catriona Wightman, Digital Spy, 12th November 2010

Simon Bird is brilliant in E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, and the first scene of his new series suggests more of the same - except Bird plays a geeky, gaffe-prone office worker rather than a geeky, gaffe-prone sixth-former. Then the opening titles roll and, confusingly, we're suddenly in a TV studio, where Apprentice runner-up Kate Walsh, Eamonn Holmes and Mollie King from the Saturdays are perched apprehensively on stools. The King Is Dead is a spoof panel game, it transpires, where second-rate celebs are "interviewed" for the job of Assistant Regional Head of Sales. Bird dishes out stationery-themed gags, dubious stats and silly tests. Holmes gets the worst of it - the highlight of a poor show.

Claire Webb, Radio Times, 2nd September 2010

Just baffling: whereas Eamonn Holmes famously had a sense-of-humour bypass over The Impressions Show, he's apparently perfectly happy to send himself up here, waving a cutlass and shouting "Nobody touches me!" prior to being "medicated" for a show. Perhaps it's harder to get cross with puppets. In the series finale, an unsuspecting Destiny models for glamour photos; while Nelson's role as fire warden during bonfire night (aka "5/11") is compromised by a militant hedgehog. Also features, apropos of nothing, a Riverdancing lamb. More please.

The Guardian, 10th August 2010

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