Who would have predicted an interview show fronted by neurodivergent and learning disabled people would turn out to be one of the most compelling and uplifting this year?
Yet here we are with ITV's 'The Assembly' - a show which puts famous faces into a high rise office building to face a barrage of questions that often cut really deep.
Originally piloted on BBC1 last year with the Welsh actor Michael Sheen serving as the guinea pig, the format has been a huge success in France where Emmanuel Macron was asked about marrying his high school teacher and Australia where the 'Jurassic Park' and 'Peaky Blinders' star Sam Neill welled up when recalling his parents.
The BBC decided not to option 'The Assembly' as a series.
However that decision now looks like a massive own goal.
Stepping into the breach, ITV's version catapults Danny Dyer, David Tennant, Little Mix's Jade Thirlwall and Gary Lineker into an arena where no question is out of bounds.
As the celebrities shift uncomfortably in their seats, they are hit with questions that range from the very personal to the sweet and the surprising.
Their responses are illuminating.
The opening episode sees Dyer being hit from the off with a zinger from a young woman called Chardonnay about his finances which sees the 'Rivals' and former 'Eastenders' actor candidly open up about being kicked out of his house by his wife Jo for being a drug addict.
Dyer acquits himself brilliantly throughout - proving really self-deprecating about his wannabe East End hardman image when he is challenged to a fight by one participant or is asked by another woman called Caroline why he is so sweary.
He's refreshingly honest too about his dysfunctional upbringing, the impact that it had on him and the self-destructive behaviour brought about by the loss of father figures like his grandad and his mentor, the playwright Harold Pinter.
Tenant is typically charming when fielding questions about whether he is religious, his support for trans rights in spite of JK Rowling, the controversy around Neil Gaiman or the ridiculousness of him wearing a sweatshirt with the word "college" on it.
Thirlwall is open about the importance of her Muslim heritage, the tabloid fixation with her body image and her memories of the late One Direction star Liam Payne.
Lineker is peppered with questions about crapping himself on the pitch at the Italia 90 World Cup, whether there will ever be a prominent gay footballer, about his son's leukemia diagnosis, his exit from the BBC and his Walker crisps ads.
With no publicist to vet the questions, it makes for riveting and revealing television.
But it is also hugely heartwarming as several of the interviewers relay their personal struggles with anxiety or family rejection and the celebrities relate to them.
The show doesn't condescend but celebrates difference and self-expression.
Some of the best moments are spur of the moment like Dyer teaching the group how to meditate or Thirlwall taking them through a dance routine.
It's also wonderful to see the interviewees well up during performances by the group of Primal Scream's 'Movin' On Up,' The Proclaimers' 'Sunshine On Leith' and Diana Ross's 'I'm Coming Out'.
Agents, no doubt, will be jostling to get their clients on the next series.
But here's hoping we get to see how someone like Prime Minister Keir Starmer or Piers Morgan fares and if the group can pierce their armour.
('The Assembly' was broadcast on ITV between April 26-May 11, 2025 with all episodes available to stream on ITVx)
She was Samantha Cookes before she became Carrie Jade Williams, Lucy Hart, Lucy Fitzwilliams, Jade O'Sullivan or Sadie Harris.
RTE1 and BBC1's two part documentary series 'Bad Nanny' is one of those extraordinary real life tales about a con artist exploiting people's vulnerabilities and leaving a trail of destruction and shame in her wake.
Hopping between the UK and Ireland, like Shimon Yehuda Hayut in 'The Tinder Swindler' or Robert Freegard in 'Puppet Master: Hunting The Ultimate Conman,' it's a tale of a fraudster with the gift of the gab moving from town to town and inveigling her way into people's lives.
It begins with Englishwoman Samantha Cookes posing on TikTok as a fake Huntington's Disease sufferer Carrie Jade Williams, building up a following with life affirming posts about living life to the full and helping others before the debilitating condition takes hold.
After winning her Tik Tok audience's trust, she claims she is being sued by an American couple and the post goes viral, with users being encouraged to bail her out.
Influencers soon realise she's not who she seems as previous victims of Cookes' scams come forward.
They begin to look into her colourful past - only for her to vanish from social media when she is confronted about her history of fraud.
What emerges is a jaw dropping tale of a con artist who flees to Ireland - posing initially as a nanny in Co Offaly, then as a child therapist in Dublin and then as a terminally ill author in Co Kerry.
In every location, she befriends people and then defrauds them with promises of once in a lifetime trips to Lapland or supposed fundraising for a woman's refuge that doesn't exist.
Victims of her fraud speak candidly to the programme makers about how they were taken in by her charm and exploited.
Director Alan Bradley also touches upon a tragic life of children taken into care with Cookes' first born dying on the day she was due to be given up for adoption.
Cookes' story has been covered before in podcasts and RTE talk radio shows like Joe Duffy's 'Liveline'.
However Bradley does a decent job taking a TV audience through her story in a pacy, entertaining fashion.
Arrested last year in Tralee, Cookes was sentenced recently to four years in prison, with a year suspended, for theft and welfare fraud.
Many eyes will undoubtedly be focused on what she does on her release and if jail really has changed her.
('Bad Nanny' was broadcast on RTE1 in Ireland between May 12-19, 2025 and BBC1 on May 14-21 and is available for streaming on the RTE Player in Ireland and the BBC iPlayer in the UK)
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