Yung Filly's Celeb Lock-In review – a zany pub quiz for the TikTok generation

If you are over the age of 21, you may have missed Yung Filly’s Lockdown Showdown when it appeared on iPlayer in May, its blur of TikTok-friendly goofing around being about as ageing as looking after newborn triplets for six months. The quiz show, initially made under full lockdown rules, and now under semi-lockdown conditions, has been polished up slightly, rebranded, and now exists as Yung Filly’s Celeb Lock-In (BBC Three). It’s slight, it’s silly – and it’s surprisingly fun.

Our host is a YouTube star turned presenter, who tried his best to find a lick of sense in the amazingly baffling dating show Hot Property , which also aired on BBC Three. Here, his relentless enthusiasm chivvies the contestants along nicely, encouraging them to act out as they tackle pub-quiz questions from the comfort of their own homes (or, as in this first episode, from the comfort of their own alpaca farm).

Like the alpacas, each of the teams in the opening show are from Scotland, and the celeb of the first Lock-In is Maisie Smith, a TikTok star who may be better known for playing Tiffany Butcher in EastEnders. (One team has never seen EastEnders, which is a shame, as several questions are themed around knowing at least a bit about it.)

The show is so good natured and frothy that it is difficult to find fault, although it all makes me feel several hundred years old. Also, for anyone who was caught up in the great Zoom pub quiz phase of lockdown, it has a nostalgic air to it, since many of the rounds have a homemade feel. The teams have to identify key scenes from EastEnders, based only on Smith and her mum lip-syncing the dialogue (and who would pass up the chance to relive Pat and Peggy slapping each other, or Zoe Slater shouting, “You ain’t my muvva!”?). Otherwise, it is a make-do-and-mend kind of affair. The teams have to recreate scenes from movie history using whatever they have to hand, which means the Joker is penalised for wearing hot pants. There’s also a round in which pairs of contestants have to hold increasing numbers of toilet rolls between their foreheads.

The thing about the Zoom pub quiz era was that it just seemed to stop, quite abruptly, and nobody ever talked about it again. If anyone is still keeping that flame burning, there is plenty of inspiration for rounds here. If I learned anything during those heady days, it is that a Monopoly trivia round is fun in theory, but tough in practice, and that anything involving using a swimming cap and lipstick to dress up as a Simpsons character is infinitely more fun.

Not all of the teams approach the Celeb Lock-In with equal levels of enthusiasm. While sisters Laura and Linsay, of alpaca farm fame, take on each new round with gusto, siblings Corrye and Dylan look more like they wandered on to the wrong Zoom chat by accident. Students Chief, Dan and Nathan give it their all for a Star Wars reenactment, while “Seb and the cousins” breathe new life into the iconic John Hurt scene from Alien, with nothing to hand but some creative camera work and an unidentified red-brown sauce.

Yung Filly does the difficult job of holding it all together. As we have seen, some of the more, shall we say, “pulled together” lockdown shows have had all the spark of the fifth conference call of the morning, but sticking him in a studio, on a proper set in front of a stack of old-fashioned televisions, really does make a difference. I suspect it won’t be long before he moves on to the kind of presenting where he will have to explain TikTok to the audience – and I mean that as a compliment.

There is deeper nostalgia here, too, that doesn’t just reach back to late March. With its faux-naïf computer graphics, and the low-key, low-budget BBC prizes – the first episode promises a set of disco lights, and I don’t think they’re the pricey ones – it all feels very late-80s Channel 4. I’m all for people competing for the thrill of it, and not just for the big bucks. That’s why I watch so much Pointless. This is fluff, but energetic, enthusiastic fluff. If the trend for quiz shows involves bad revivals of old favourites, then this is, at least, something fresh.