Sexy Beasts, TV review: Another bonkers BBC3 programme

New show like a Blind Date Halloween special

BBC Three's Sexy Beasts (BBC)

There's plenty of TV opportunities to find happiness through true love, although Sexy Beasts, a bonkers new BBC3 programme is unlikely to be of much help.

The format involves one eligible single and three hopeful suitors. So far, so conventional; only on Sexy Beasts, all four participants have had their real faces obscured by several layers of not-so-sexy Hollywood prosthetics. It was like a Blind Date Halloween special.

This week's hopeful Bethany, was a 21-year-old fashion student/witchy old hag who liked short boys with Essex accents. She was in luck because her first date was with Scott, a pocket-sized geezer who'd been transformed into Benjamin Button with the help of ageing make up. Scott's unusually long list of dating no-nos included girls wearing "cheap leggings" or riding a bicycle: "I just hate girls on push bikes. Do not like it. Turn. Off."

Then there was 6'6" professional athlete, Josh. He'd been made up to look like Frankenstein's monster, but the most unattractive thing about him was still his line in religion-themed chat-up lines. "Are you Jewish? Cause you Israeli hot... Halal? Is it meat you're looking for?" Rounding out the three was Avatar alien Ricardo, easily the most down-to-earth and likable of the bunch and thus, inevitably, the first to be eliminated.

Once Bethany had chosen a beast to match her – hopefully, inner – beauty, the prosthetics came off, revealing four above averagely attractive people and a match that both parties seemed well satisfied with. Had we all learnt a valuable lesson about not judging a prospective partner by their appearance? Unlikely. The real test will come when the prosthetics are removed only to reveal something even grislier underneath.