The Neighbourhood evaluate – Even Graham Norton can’t save this trippy actuality present

There are few sources of drama as rich as a neighbourhood WhatsApp group. Petty rivalries, passive-aggressive comments about bin day, grainy Ring doorbell footage of the suspicious character who keeps nicking your Amazon parcel – your street’s version almost certainly has it all. It’s a very 21st-century form of curtain twitching, but with more AI slop and dubious political memes.

ITV execs must have been scrolling through their local Facebook group before commissioning The Neighbourhood. The channel’s latest reality competition takes six households and plonks them in a purpose-built cul-de-sac in the Peak District that looks like it could have been plucked straight out of the Barratt Homes Little England range, if such a thing existed.

The competitors must take part in what is essentially a neighbourhood popularity contest, schmoozing the next-doors to avoid being nominated for a “removal”. It’s a game where, as host Graham Norton – a very good get for an untested reality concept – puts it, it’s not just about keeping up with the Joneses, but beating them.

The winners will return to their actual homes with £250,000 in cash, which raises the stakes somewhat. “I just want to make friends,” says 51-year-old Sunita, who has moved into the Neighbourhood with her husband Tony and her 24-year-old son Ruben. “Friends or 250k?” Tony asks her. “Well,” she reasons after a brief pause. “I’ve got plenty of friends already.”

Joining them in the game are three more families – the multigenerational Bradons from Leigh-on-Sea, the Pescuds from Cambridgeshire and the Lozman-Sturrocks from Darlington – as well as a quartet of “uni boys” and a “scouse haus” populated by twin sisters Louise and Lyndsey, and the latter’s girlfriend Rosie (whom I recognised from her TikTok skits that take aim at “gritty” Merseyside dramas).

Soon, Sunita is passing Indian delicacies over the fence to the Bradons next door, clearly hoping the way to their hearts will be through their stomachs, while the uni boys defeat any stereotypes about Gen-Zers being socially awkward and win over their fellow residents effortlessly. “I’m a charming boy,” grins 20-year-old Fahad, having just bonded with a grandmother from Essex.

As is obligatory in any post-Traitors competition, there are also a bunch of tasks that you’ll probably end up wanting to fast forward, unless you’re really piqued by the idea of watching the contestants receive low-level electric shocks while dangling from an oversized washing line, or running around retrieving garden gnomes.

Success in a task guarantees one household is exempt from elimination, but that doesn’t really make it any more interesting. Even Norton – usually such a reliable source of quips – doesn’t enliven the proceedings much: his role is essentially to hover on the sidelines during the challenges and offer the odd quip, and preside over any arrivals or departures. He’s still a very welcome presence, adding a touch of prestige to the whole affair, but you might end up wishing that the producers had given him freer rein to lean into the spikier side of his broadcasting persona, which feels somewhat toned down here.

Each episode builds up to the crescendo of the “removal”, a bizarre ceremony that involves one representative from each household sticking a “for sale” sign outside the home of the players they want to boot out.

There are some enjoyably big characters here, such as Jordan from the Lozman-Sturrocks, an oil rig worker and ex-soldier who can be disarmingly honest about mental health one minute, then embark on a tirade against cat owners the next (“If people don’t like the fact that cats are boring and s*** then sue me!”). And the smaller interactions are sweet, too, like when one of the teenage contestants blushingly declares to the camera that one of the boys next door is “so fit it’s unreal”, before we cut to them having a stilted conversation in the local coffee shop.

But for the most part, there is none of the psychological intrigue of, say, a Traitors round table, although presumably things will become more tense the longer the residents have been stuck in the Neighbourhood – and the closer they get to the prize money. For now, though, there’s not quite enough to ensure that viewers will want to stick around for the full duration of the tenancy.