TV review by Steve Bennett

The Windsors creators Bert Tyler-Moore and George Jeffrie have not strayed too far from what they know with the latest BBC Two comedy pilot, with heightened versions of celebrities, rather than Royals, inhabiting Island Of Dreams.

Set in Richard Branson’s Virgin Island hideaway of Necker, the comedy draws on Fantasy Island – with the character of Baboo excitedly trilling, ’The plane! The plane!’ as the stars arrive.

Away from home, the celebrities’ stories unfold under the watchful eye of the Virgin tycoon, brilliantly played by Harry Enfield, occasionally suggesting a sinister edge behind that beatific smile.  For the writers are not afraid to puncture the cuddly public image by branding Branson ‘a bearded perv’ who pollutes the environment and aggressively avoids taxes. His terrible trains are a running joke, too.

Such aspects give a little satirical spice to what is essentially another half-hour of cheesy fun, with the caricatures of the stars hooking up, considering their careers or stumbling across hints that there might be more to the quasi-mythical island paradise than meets the eye.

Certainly, the performances are camp, including accents turned up to 11, from the flattened Cockney vowels of Morgana Robinson’s insecure Adele to the Gloucestershire twang of Samantha Spiro’s foul-mouthed JK Rowling.

Also in the starry cast are Jamie Demetriou as rival billionaire tycoon Elon Musk; Al Murray as talent-free Gregg Wallace (though be warned: we do see him in his thong); Tom Basden and Richard Gouldiung as Daniels Craig and Radcliffe respectively; and Dustin Demri-Burns as Professor Brian Cox, invited to assess the Virgin Galactic rocket set to launch from the island Thunderbirds-style.

Island Of Dreams is not quite as big and brash as the soap-operafication of the Royal Family, but there’s fun to be had with these daft versions of familiar faces, plus plenty of wry jokes and inappropriately crude lines to make it an entertaining half-hour of silliness.

Review date: 3 Jan 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett