By Matthew Gormley @MatthewPGormley

The latest series of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway bowed out in spectacular style on Saturday night, broadcasting live from Magic Kingdom in the heart of Walt Disney World, Florida.

Not content with last year’s cruise chip finale (the final show of the 2016 series took place on the top deck of Royal Caribbean’s Britannia cruise liner, in Barcelona), the Geordie duo decided to push the boundaries even further. In a television first, the stage was set at the top of the world-famous Main Street, with the iconic Cinderella Castle providing the most stunning backdrop for an hour and a half of live, light entertainment from across the pond, in one of the most ambitious broadcasts ever attempted. Throughout the series, over two hundred viewers had managed to back themselves a place on the plane through various competitions and games, all of which formed part of the t-shirt clad audience, sat in the searing 27 °C humidity in the middle of the afternoon.

Walt Disney World is arguably the most magical place on Earth, and if you’re lucky enough to have visited the theme parks, you’ll know it’s an indescribable experience; pure fantasy brought to life. As hard as it is to capture the spirit on camera, the Takeaway team managed to do so, opening with a musical number set to the tune of ‘Be Our Guest’ from Beauty And The Beast, with clips of Ant and Dec dashing through sister parks Animal Kingdom and Epcot, joined by members of the character teams, before arriving on stage in front of the castle.

All the usual features cropped up, including Stephen Mulhern’s pop-up gameshow, ‘In For A Penny’, with an American twist. Sadly, many of the Americans taking part lacked a sense of humour, so it didn’t quite work as well as it could have done. The British sense of humour is a very unique thing and can’t be replicated on the other side of the Atlantic.

The final round of ‘Ant vs Dec: Through Time’ cleverly incorporated several of the theme park’s rollercoasters into the 1930s and 1950s-inspired challenges. Watching the duo desperately trying to cling onto a tub of popcorn whilst catapulting up and down the Tower of Terror during the first challenge was priceless, though I doubt it was quite as fun for them as they plummeted down from 199 feet. The second saw them tackling a spelling bee whilst riding Expedition Everest, with Ant far more interested in having fun on the rollercoaster than trying to spell the moderately challenging words. The final round, The Big Bang, had the poor lads sweltering inside giant inflatable bouncy balls. I couldn’t help but feel for Dec, as I saw the beads of sweat rolling down his face and into his eyes. His discomfort was worsened when he lost out to Ant, and the mortification continued when his balloon finally burst to reveal his shorts flailing round his ankles. It was a truly hilarious mishap which brought tears of an entirely different nature to the eyes.

The Florida finale also saw the climax of the farcical whodunit ‘The Missing Crown Jewels’, where the identity of Mask Face was finally revealed. It was somewhat anticlimactic, as behind the phantom mask was Cat Deeley, Ant and Dec’s former co-host from their SMTV days. After four genuinely entertaining mini episodes, the last instalment turned into a little bit of a damp squib. It wasn’t particularly funny, and, with hindsight, served primarily as a build-up to the announcement that the trio are to reunite, next year, for a Saturday morning nostalgia fest in celebration of SMTV’s 20th anniversary.

CeeLo Green appeared for another edition of ‘Singalong Live’, one of my favourite features from SNT’s plethora of content, but it failed to cut through outside the familiar studio setting. I don’t think it helped that the chosen track was his 2010 hit ‘Forget You’, hardly a karaoke classic.
This quality of some of this year’s End Of The Show Shows has been rather poor, giving the impression that new ideas are in short supply. As much as I appreciate songs with specially-written lyrics, last week’s ‘Subtle Thank You Song’, performed by the cast of the show alongside a gospel choir, was especially naff. Thankfully, this week’s Disney special more than made up for it.

The all-singing, all-dancing rendition of ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, featuring all your favourite Disney friends, was reminiscent of the incredible parades that patrol the streets of Magic Kingdom of an afternoon. The lyrics had been changed to pay homage to the series, but many of them were inaudible, which was a real shame given the intricacy of the musical production. Ant and Dec have certainly been bitten by the singing bug since a surprise performance of their 1994 hip-hop number ‘Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble’ on Takeaway in 2013 saw the track storm back into the top of the charts; they now take to the mic at every opportunity. We’ll forgive them for being a little out of time during the first verse; if you were on a float headlining a parade at Magic Kingdom, wouldn’t you get carried away? It’s the stuff dreams are made of.

Credit must also be duly awarded to Scarlett Moffatt, who not only had the unenviable task of saying the coined phrase backwards, but demonstrated some impressive dancing alongside the ensemble piece.

At the end of the musical finale, Ant and Dec revealed that they will in fact ‘be back next year with lots more Takeaway’. Always wanting to go bigger and better, quite how they’ll manage to beat this stonking showstopper beats me. I can’t begin to imagine how much planning went into last night’s show, and it’s kudos to the hundreds of crew behind the scenes who made it work. Broadcasting live to the UK from a packed theme park in Florida, in the sun, at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, is no mean feat.

It was an incredible production which will go down in television history. Even a few mishaps failed to ruin the magic. It’s a rare thing these days, but this was Saturday night entertainment at its best; a Disney dream come true.