Television - Clueless celebs tie themselves up in verbal knots, writes Andrew Billen Spelling Bee (ITV1)

And what, after everything, could be more normal or comforting than a spelling bee? ITV's latest foray into the related genres of celebrity and game shows, Spelling Bee (14 July, 9pm), was something that, in an only slightly alternative universe, might have hailed from the very earliest days of what Melvyn Bragg, in his current series on ITV's history, insists on calling the "People's Channel". Its format would not have challenged Hughie Green or Michael Miles for a second, let alone Bob Monk- house. Get the contestants to spell out difficult words. And what do words make? Money - for (in another age-honed phrase) "a charity of your choice".

The spelling bee was ignored by television for so long only because it had never been a British parlour game, still less - and more's the pity - a part of the national curriculum. It was a vague memory from child-friendly American sitcoms. Two winters ago, however, an American film documentary, Spellbound, was released here. This revealed spelling contests as a peri-pubescent obsession in the US, a receptacle for Wasp pushiness and a means for America's newer immigrants to prove their assimilation by spelling better than their redneck neighbours. The phenomenon looked like a form of cruelty and child exploitation at first, but, by the end of the film, had revealed itself to be a metaphor, inspiring in its way, for America's meritocratic dream of itself.

After seeing it, I asked my friend, a light-entertainment TV producer, if the format could be adapted for British television. He told me that there were half a dozen proposals already floating around TV land. Spelling Bee was, presumably, one of them. Inside its inflated 90 minutes was a half-hour early evening quiz-fight to reveal the true inheritor of the tradition of quizzes for brainy schoolkids such as Top of the Form and Ask The Family.

Instead, Chris Tarrant, who, in a nod to nerdiness, wore a polo shirt buttoned up to the neck, entered a vast and overlit studio to the sound of chords from the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? theme, and introduced 12 grown-ups. There were signs that Tarrant was not taking things very seriously. "All this excitement over a spelling contest," he sneered early on and, less forgivably, compared the studio audience to a "coach party from care in the community". The atmosphere, he observed, could not be more tense if ITV had lined up Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie for a face-slapping contest.

Why, he asked, did the Americans call it a bee? The answer would have been worth hearing, but Tarrant was happy to leave it a mystery. (He could have opened a dictionary and told us that a "bee" is an American term for an event that draws a community together. Quilt bees are another example. "Bee" may also be a contraction of the dialect word "bean", meaning neighbourly help.)

To add to the transatlantic mystique, waiting in a connected studio was the star of US versions of the show, a spelling-bee champion called Samir Patel, aka the Human Dictionary. Samir, 11, is possessed not only of a remarkable head for spelling, but a ready-formed TV persona combining cockiness, condescension and showbiz smarts. "Thank you, Samir. And thank you for having me on your show," quipped Tarrant, after the Walking Talking Webster's had made his first toe-curling contribution. Later, acting as a lifeline to The Bill's Trudie Good- win, who had lost her nerve over "ostentatious", he warned Tarrant: "I know I'm right. You can stop trying to psyche me out." "But," Tarrant replied plaintively, "I do this for a living."

Patel was instantly a bigger star than the celebrities rounded up for the contest. It is a cliche to say we live in an age where you can be a celebrity for doing nothing, but these are also days in which you can be a celebrity without anyone knowing who you are. I recognised Goodwin from the Sun Hill cop shop, but, as a TV critic, I had probably better not admit to which of the following I had difficulty locating in the TV firmament: Antony Cotton, Tim Vine, Andrew Castle, Wendi Peters. (Well, OK, all of them.) There may even be a TV format here: Know Your C-List Celebs (c A Billen).

As revenge on unearned fame, Spelling Bee proved exquisite. There was, admittedly, no moment to match the famous poolside incident on Celebrity Love Island when Abi Titmuss proved unable to spell "celebrity", but it was still pure pleasure to see Tara Palmer-Tomkinson miss out the second "i" from "liaise" and resort to praising her own dress. Watching the anti-hero of Hell's Kitchen, Edwina Currie, mess up the spelling of "cannelloni" also seemed like long-delayed justice. Equally, although it is tempting to dismiss the intellectual quality of the hosts of GMTV, Fiona Phillips demonstrated grace under pressure in spelling "irreversible" backwards. James Bond's boss, Samantha Bond, won. Second was Tony Slattery, who got within one letter of correctly spelling "triskaidekaphobia" ("I beg your pardon" being his initial, stunned reaction).

The whole thing was, despite Tarrant's scepticism, surprisingly tense. It was televisual because the appearance of perspiration on brows always is. Next up, Celebrity Punctuation with Lynne Truss and John Humphrys as team captains - and no part for Roger Black, who thought "apostrophe" had a second "a" in it.

Andrew Billen is a staff writer for the Times

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