The Masked Dancer, review: what is it that I'm missing about this awful show?

Never have I felt more out of step with public opinion than watching the response to The Masked Singer. Surely this show is awful? Aside from anything else - and my list is so long that there isn’t room to go through it here - it is marketed as a show for all the family, yet the celebrities are people unrecognisable to the under-25s even when they’ve taken off their costumes.

I concede that it would have appeal if the contestants were megastars, and don’t think we can entirely exclude the possibility that Tom Cruise has pencilled it in as part of his marketing campaign for Mission: Impossible 7. But viewing it with anyone young requires quite a lot of explanation. “That person is called Denise Van Outen. She hosted a breakfast show in the days before they consisted of presenters shouting at government ministers.” “That man? Oh, he was Home Secretary from 2009-10.”

But millions love it. It has been nominated for best entertainment programme at next week’s Baftas, and will probably win. I have been on the wrong side of history. And that brings us to The Masked Dancer (ITV). It’s on every night this week, God help us. I think it’s marginally better than The Masked Singer, which no doubt means everyone else will think it’s much worse.

There are two reasons for this. One is that Rita Ora isn’t involved, so immediately things are looking up (Rita brought very little to the party). She has been replaced on the judging panel by Strictly’s Oti Mabuse, alongside Davina McCall, Jonathan Ross and Mo Gilligan.

Secondly, watching a mystery person dance is visually more pleasurable than watching a mystery person sing, if you really must watch someone performing on stage while wearing a giant head in the shape of a beetroot. There is choreography to look at, and busy stage sets to keep your attention. A couple of the celebrities can actually dance pretty well. I thought Car Wash - yes, a person dressed as part of a drive-through car wash - might be Howard Donald from Take That.

Clues are provided as to the dancers’ identities - some seemed relatively easy to work out, while others would have given Ted Rogers a run for his money on 3-2-1. If the bizarreness of the whole enterprise needed underlining, the first person to be booted off the show for an underwhelming dance performance was Jordan Banjo. And what does he do for a living? He’s a professional dancer, of course.