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TV PREVIEWS
Genius, Friday 10pm, BBC2 
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I once came up with an amazing invention: a mobile phone with a built-in breathalyser, in order to prevent binge drinkers making phone calls to ex-girlfriends or boyfriends that they'd later regret. I even had a name and a tagline for it: "The Demobiliser: simply breathtaking."
Before sending off for the patent, I did some Googling and was whisked over to Radio 4's Genius homepage, where, inevitably, someone had already pitched the idea. Sigh. Anyway, now Genius has made the transition to television, giving me the chance to relive my pain and presenter Dave Gorman the opportunity to show off his beard and bolster the original show with whatever amusing props take his fancy.
Adopting a format that's reminiscent of Room 101, each show features a celebrity guest – this series opener has Catherine Tate – who act as a more benevolent and kooky version of the Dragons' Den's moguls and decide whether ideas by members of the public (inevitably the kind of list-making male prone to wacky pub conversation) are genius or slightly too silly for their own good.
Nicely, it's the nervous would-be inventers who are the stars of the show, with Tate and Gorman gawping and giggling at a coat with a hood in its arm to shelter your girlfriend, the shoe-lending scheme invented by one oddball taxi driver and more.
You'd be hard pushed to find a more irritating theme tune, so say a quick thank-you prayer to the inventor of the remote control's mute button and prepare yourself for some hilarious thinking that's so far outside the box, it's as if the box never even existed in the first place.
by Will Parkhouse, Wednesday 18 March 2009
Picture: BBC
