CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Upset one ex-Playboy Bunny and you unleash the wrath of them all

First Dates

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The Grand Party Hotel

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Uh-oh, Steve. Yikes and crikey. You might not know it yet but when you turned down that second date with former Playboy Bunny Kelly-Ann, you didn’t just upset one woman. You insulted a sisterhood.  

I should know, because earlier this year I inadvertently provoked the wrath of the Bunnies myself.

At the start of lockdown, I helped to compile a Mail casebook of historic, high-profile murder investigations, drawing on archive reports. One of these was the killing of Eve Stratford, aka Bunny Ava, who had her throat cut by a man at her home in 1975.

Those old reports reflected the lurid way that the girls were often portrayed at the time. Several of Eve’s colleagues, quite rightly, wrote to point out how unfairly they were treated by police and media in the Seventies. Eve’s killer was never found.

The camaraderie ex-Bunnies share, half a century after the Mayfair club was at its height, remains forceful. They look after each other.

Former model Steve, 65, ought to have known that — in his teens he was briefly a barman at the casino on Park Lane.

Yet, after he was paired with 69-year-old Kelly-Ann on First Dates (C4), he made little effort to let her down gently. There was no chemistry between them, he announced, before telling his companion to her face that he didn’t fancy her.

How ungentlemanly and unnecessary. It would have been better to drop a hint off-screen than drop a bombshell on camera. ‘That might be the first time in my life I’ve been rejected,’ Kelly-Ann said, laughing it off. Steve might find her Bunny mates are less forgiving.

This was a largely low-key return for a show that usually supplies some big revelations over dinner. We expect daters to turn up with stories of tragedies or catastrophic embarrassments in their past love lives, but there were few shocks for much of the hour . . . just cringeworthy moments.

Fitness instructor Selvyn showcased his Eighties dance moves. Car mechanic Rhys tried to show his date, Nikita, a tattoo on his groin. It read ‘Lucky Girl’, he boasted.

The closest we got to drama came when Kelly-Ann revealed the names of some old flames — including Jack Nicholson, Peter Cook and Jimmy Page. But then 31-year-old Aaron sat down with Jess, 26, and it was plain they shared a secret. This was hardly a conventional first date: they’d met years ago, and obviously fancied each other rotten.

They circled round the mystery, before handsomely bearded Aaron revealed to waiters that he used to be Amy.

This was his first date as a man. In a show that dares us to guess how each romance will turn out, it was a very impressive surprise.

The Grand Party Hotel (BBC1) pinches the First Dates format of getting couples to sit on a sofa and talk about their relationships.

Guests at the Shankly in Liverpool are invited to reveal a few secrets of their own. The trouble is that, as we’ve never met these people before and don’t see them again, nothing they tell us is very meaningful or memorable.

The filmmakers obviously know that in the lives of these strangers, who are out for one night of celebration, there’s a wealth of good material.

But it’s wasted. Most of the time, the cameras are following the staff as they set up Mad Hatter’s tea parties or stage pop festivals on the roof.

Behind the crazy facade, it’s decidedly boring and corporate. All the perky music on the soundtrack cannot disguise that.