PLEASE tell me you have been watching Any Dream Will Do, (BBC1 Sat nights). For the sake of those who, bizarrely, have not wished to spend their evenings in the company of Andrew Lloyd Webber, I will explain.

Currently, on the BBC, 12 young men are singing their very lungs out for the chance to play the part of Joseph in the latest version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat.

This follows last year's production of The Sound of Music which opened at the London Palladium after the leading role was cast via the similarly-themed BBC publicity machine, I mean, ahem . . . programme How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?

Now, I had missed Maria' so had entirely failed to notice that a new nadir in television has been attained.

The low point I speak of occurs in the nail-biting second section of Any Dream, where the votes have been counted and two poor lads are about to take part in a sing off.

Firstly, in a new twist to the old format, host Graham Norton tells one of the two (already considerably nervous) wannabe Josephs that, if it were up to the public, he'd be going home as he was the one with the lowest public votes.

Having devastated the sorry fellow in such a fashion, he then invites him and the other, slightly less-hated Joseph to sing for their lives in front of Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is the aesthetic equivalent to doing karaoke in front of a pile of tripe in a toupee, I'd have thought.

Anyhow - they sing, almost in tears, and then Andrew pulls a few tripey expressions, says it is a terribly difficult decision to make, and picks the opposite guy to the one you'd expect, while the camera pans to the other one, looking like he's been hit by an invisible truck.

That isn't the worst bit. The guy who Lord Andrew hasn't blessed, whose dream of performing in the lovely bright coat is now just a pile of old darning wool, has to go onstage, put on said coat, and sing a mournful Joseph song, while his fellow Josephs warble "Poor, poor Joseph, things look bad for you, hey, what'cha gonna do? Poor, poor Joseph" around him. And then they rip his coat off.

Now, I watch Big Brother every year. I have witnessed Richard Madeley talking about Judy's women's problems. I watched Matt Willis eat a kangaroos bum on I'm a Celebrity. I have an active penchant for Murder She Wrote. So I can catergorically state that TV has reached a new low. Some invisible line has been crossed. Some young, BBC upstart has decided that crushing disappointment on national TV in front of an audience of their family and friends is just NOT ENOUGH.

I am pinned to the screen now, just waiting for one of the Josephs to go renegade, throw a high kick at Andrew Lloyd Webber, shout "Stuff your coat" and storm the doors before they can grapple it off him.

But I don't think it's going to happen because - and this IS the worst bit - they seem to sort of enjoy it.