Bang… and the dude has gone. Barry Scott, the poundstore Mr Muscle whose terrifying enthusiasm launched a thousand memes and even a techno remix, has been canned. In a post-Clarkson age where Radio X was met with a universal side-eye and even The Lad Bible has dropped boobs and banter in favour of shiny content, ad men must have deemed him a liability. After all, this was a character who possessed phallic tokens aplenty, from cranes to planes, and regularly barked orders at housewives as they scrubbed their sinks. Could he get any more meninist?
Conveniently, the demise of Scott – a face known only to UK audiences – coincides with the launch of the first multi-territory Cillit Bang campaign, fronted by a posterboy for a new, malleable masculinity. Although he’s a mechanic, he’s not afraid to clean a filthy garage all by himself, using his dancey free-running skills to turn the task into something closer to performance art. Not-Barry’s soundtrack of choice is a curveball, too: a campy Europop take on Maniac from Flashdance, rather than the house bangers you just know the real Baz would have downloaded in the post-divorce years.
However, as with many big-budget European ads, something about this seems a bit too swish. The choreography is too tight, and all that parkour feels gratuitous. In Britain, Cillit Bang is a simpler thing. It means shining up your coppers and cleaning baths that look as if they’ve been salvaged from a crime scene. It means hammy dialogue, inflated claims and a brand of shopping-channel sexism that borders on pastiche. Here’s to a Brexit, and the safe return of an idol.
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