John Barrowman couldn’t last 32 minutes? I’m tired of reality TV playing into gay stereotypes

When TS Eliot wrote that “mankind cannot bear very much reality”, he could not have imagined the epithet would one day apply to something called reality TV – and, even more specifically, someone called John Barrowman.

The 57-year-old Torchwood actor had been widely billed as a contestant on the new series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, the ruthless Channel 4 show that puts unwitting recruits through a quasi-military training programme involving physically punishing challenges, hostage rescue missions and cruel interrogations. How would a super-camp, showbizzy type with a fondness for fruity innuendo cope with being relentlessly drilled by ex-members of the special forces?

On paper, it was a logical move for Barrowman, who needed to “do a Matt Hancock”. The former health secretary had gamely taken part in a previous series after he was caught on hidden camera kissing a departmental aide during lockdown, in breach of his government’s Covid rules on social distancing. He was made to crawl through mud, got punched in the face by a fellow contestant, and had an interrogator bellow that he was an “arrogant w*****” – but “Hancock with a silent Han”, as he was nicknamed, stuck it out and was crowned the winner.

Barrowman also has a reputation to try and rehabilitate. He hasn’t been much on our screens since accusations that, while filming Doctor Who, he would expose himself on set – disgraceful antics for which he has apologised, but which may have permanently damaged his standing in the public eye (perhaps more importantly, within the demi-monde of light entertainment).

Viewers of the new series of Celebrity SAS will have been disappointed when Barrowman threw in the towel after spending 32 minutes at base camp: just long enough to refer to himself in the third person and try out a long-lost Scottish accent – more than enough to do a great disservice to gay people everywhere.

Because it wasn’t a body-breaking challenge that broke Barrowman. He retched at being fed tofu, and promptly announced: “I’m done.”

It was a reminder of how insufferable I found him as both a judge on Dancing On Ice and a panellist on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Had he lasted a full episode of Celebrity SAS, he would surely have found an inopportune moment to break out into a showtune, so perhaps for small mercies we must be grateful.

Reality TV is a uniquely pertinent format in the field of minority rights, as it is not just an individual’s character that is on show and up for dissection, but every intersectional aspect of their being. More often than not, celebrities who happen to be gay or Black or disabled are there for that reason, ticking that all-important DEI box. By extension, when they then perform badly, so does their “community”.

Former royal footman Paul Burrell revealed he was gay when he announced his engagement to his business partner, nine months after divorcing his wife. During his 2017 turn in the I’m A Celebrity jungle, he channelled Doris Day to implore a creepy crawly to “Move over, darlin’” – and Old Compton Street let out a cringe.

Much is made of gay people appearing on reality TV shows, as proof that we’re everywhere and, as the acronym goes “good as you”. But laughable behaviour is ultimately no more progressive than the limp-wristed antics of 70s favourites John Inman and Larry Grayson, who fed a grotesque pantomime gayness to tea-time TV audiences.

When it comes to representation, we have barely moved on. Reality television only ever wants cartoonish gays. If you don’t believe me, I have three words for you: Gogglebox’s Brighton hairdresser.

Actually, I can do it in one: Rylan.

As an X Factor contestant, he was wildly over the top and flamboyant, but has since hewn a broadcasting career with a sharpness of wit, warmth of character and surprisingly roomy hinterland. As a renaissance gay man de nos jours, he almost stands alone.

Right now, the other reality TV star who is taking one for the team is Scott Mills, the Radio 2 DJ to whose charms I am normally allergic. His participation in Celebrity Race Around the World, with his fiancé Sam, is one of the first times I can recall watching reality TV gays without needing to clench.

There’s still some tick-box stereotyping. Mills has a face that only ever relaxes into a theatrical moue, he’s got the Hollywood teeth that are standard issue with A-gays, and as far as I can tell he seems permanently on the brink of a tantrum. One social media described him on Race Around the World as “surly, moody, petulant”.

But if we’re after easy-going likeability, Scott Mills is doing some heavy lifting. You could say it’s all part of his journey – literally, in Race Around the World.

Against type, it’s shows like Bake Off and Sewing Bee that have striven hardest to find gay contestants that play against type – the back-like-a-ramrod bloke who can knock up a croquembouche or who’s handy with a Singer and a dress pattern, and who you only find out in the final episode has a husband.

Perhaps gays get the reality TV gays we deserve. But the format needs more people who just happen to be same-sex-attracted, rather than those who use it to fill the gaping hole where a personality should be. Drag Race, I’m looking at you.