‘Spouting gibberish to the opposite sex’: Channel 4 borrows the Irish mating ritual

Love Island abandoned its flirtation with winter romance after a single January season in 2020. But never mind – here comes Channel 4 to plug the New Year gap with The Language Of Love (Channel 4, 10 pm). It features Davina McCall, a dozen "love hungry" singletons in a sun-kissed villa and a gimmick so exploitative it makes the ITV Laura Whitmore juggernaut look like an Adam Curtis documentary about the illusory underpinnings of democracy.

The series brings together six British and six Spanish volunteers in a villa in Andalusia. The big twist unveiled in a brisk if ultimately grim and frustrating first episode is that none of the British participants speak Spanish and none of the Spanish ones English. So it's a case of love in a linguistic vacuum, where both sides think the other is spouting gibberish.

Spouting gibberish to the opposite sex obviously hasn't prevented generations of Irish people getting together in regional nightclubs. Of course regional nightclubs don't have the obstacle of McCall and Spanish co-presenter Ricky Merino around.

Their first job is to deliver the surprise news to the contestants that their potential partners speak a different language. This comes as a bombshell to Thalia, from Surrey, Tara from Stoke-on-Trent and Tracy from East London.

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“We want to find out if physical chemistry can transcend the language barrier,” says McCall. “Let’s do it,” says Thalia. “Can I get a drink first?”

They are introduced to three shirtless locals, who are soon giving their English dates a lesson in Latin exuberance. "Could you imagine sitting next to someone from East London and they just roll out into a ballad," says one of the ladies after Jose Carlos begins crooning. "We're used to singing Wonderwall in a pub at 1am".

The female contests are joined by a trio of blokes from Blighty, who are matched up with three Spanish counterparts. Of the English guys your heart goes out to Luke, who feels his big advantage in dating is his cheerful personality. But what use is a personalty when nobody has any idea what anybody is saying?

The Language Of Love is bundled with generous helpings of manufactured drama as Thalia and Tracy both set their eyes on Jose Carlos only for geeky Cristobal to instead swoop in and nominate Thalia as his intended. Albania, a karaoke bar manager from Barcelona,is meanwhile shocked to discover 29 year-old Northumberland labourer Arran has three kids. Tempers rise and everyone looks rather annoyed.

McCall is never less than sincere and truly seems to believe she is doing vital work bolstering Anglo-Spanish relationships. She bills the series “a daring experiment like no other” while co-presenter Merino describes Andalusia as “one of he most romantic places in Spain”. Yet their enthusiasm rings hollow as the Language of Love deteriorates into another dating show by numbers, with a formula so stale not even the addition of a huge shiny gimmick can save the day.