Phillip Schofield had one last shot at redemption – and he blew it

It’s been 16 months since Phillip Schofield’s affair with a much younger This Morning colleague was exposed and put an abrupt end to a 40-year television career.

There have been few stars to capture the hearts of the nation quite like Schofield, or ‘Phil’ as he was affectionately known until that started to feel a little too friendly and familiar when he admitted lying to us, his family, and his colleagues including his best friend Holly Willoughby.

‘I know what I did was unwise, but was it enough to absolutely destroy someone?’ is the question put to the public in his long-awaited comeback, a three-part docuseries following the presenter stranded on a deserted island for 10 days with just a lip balm for company.

After more than a year of total silence, it was unclear if Schofield would even want to dip his tow back in television, face public scrutiny, and rehash the trauma of becoming public enemy number one at the centre of a national scandal.

If he was going to return to television, how would he even do it?

In Cast Away, Schofield makes sure he is in the driver’s seat for his first time on television since he was last seen shaking and furiously vaping during an uncomfortable interview with BBC’s Amol Rajan.   

Throughout he gently nudges that he’s unemployed and ‘loves’ TV without explicitly begging for work. He might be reluctant to reveal he’s hoping to relaunch his clear but it is crystal clear he is looking for redemption.

Channel 5 received plenty of backlash when they announced Cast Away – once again a powerful white man has proven to be uncancellable.

I was in the small camp who felt like Schofield did deserve a chance to have a say, more so after the car-crash interviews he shouldn’t have given so soon after losing his career and was still trembling. I don’t necessarily think he could or should clear his name, but he should be able to publicly apologise to every single person he betrayed.

Cast Away is Schofield’s chance to do just that – and on his terms.

Granted, he does concede he will ‘be forever sorry’ after ‘hurting the people around me’ but for three episodes there’s otherwise very little sign of guilt or remorse.

It feels like a wasted opportunity. This was the moment to show that he’s spent the last 16 months growing, and is heading to a deserted island to reflect on the damage he inflicted. Instead, it feels as though there is still more anger towards ITV and his abrupt exit than there is regret.

Schofield clearly feels very hard-done by. He claims to have been fired from This Morning because of the negative publicity surrounding his brother Timothy Schofield, who was sentenced to 12 years for child abuse.

He was sacked completely from ITV a week later though for lying about his ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair. Essentially Schofield was sacked for a sackable offence. Had anyone else of his status and position had an affair with a younger colleague they’d be fired too without the lifeline he’s been offered here by Channel 5.

‘I will find a way. I will not be defeated,’ he says, the words you’d normally hear from a victim or a survivor. Schofield’s biggest mistake is to present himself as either.

By the end of the miniseries, he writes down all the names of the toxic people in his life and throws a list into the fire. Clearly, this entire trip has been about him forgiving the people who have wronged him and not the other way around.

Regardless, Cast Away is quite astonishing. Schofield putting his life on the line for a survival show wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card for 2024 and at the very least for anyone curious to see how that pans out, which let’s face it is most of us, it is no doubt an unmissable TV moment.

Among the misguided outbursts at the ghosts of Schofe’s past, there are also moments of fun and genuine fear for his safety. Schofield wincing after eating an under-ripe papaya and chasing a crab for his dinner is more akin to the Schofield we all felt like we knew and loved, who didn’t take himself too seriously on This Morning.

Naturally, after a week alone, starving and sleep-deprived when he arrived a pretty broken man, Schofield starts to unravel. His rambles become more unfiltered and he becomes completely care-free, stripping completely naked in front of the camera and running into the sea.

Schofield was such a huge success because he is a natural-born entertainer once the cameras start rolling and despite a relentless year it’s clear his star quality hasn’t been broken. He clearly misses the camera, thriving the moment he can talk to the lens, regularly playing TV presenter with stars in his eyes again.

I don’t know if any ‘cancelled’ celebrity of Schofield’s status has ever put themselves under the microscope quite like this before. You really feel like he will say absolutely anything and aside from mentioning Holly Willoughby by name there is very little left to be said by the end of it.  

Both Schofield and his family are refreshingly candid because at this point he really has nothing to lose. 

His daughter Molly, admits how hard it’s been to have a father come out as gay on national television and then at the centre of such a colossal scandal. Regardless, she speaks to camera with a smile and says she’s the ‘luckiest person ever’ to have such an unbreakable bond with her family who have been tested more than most.  

Schofield talks through his experience since coming out as gay, when he wept into the arms of this then best friend Holly live in font of millions on This Morning in 2020. He admits he’s experienced ‘more anguish than joy’, of course exasperated by the fact the only relationship the public is aware of is the relationship that quite rightly ended his career.

At one point, he says there was a moment when ‘it got as dark as it is possible to get’, revealing he had ‘everything in place’ to die by suicide until his daughters convinced him to ‘take a step back from the edge’.

There’s no question that Schofield has been through crushing trauma, blowing up every part of his life so publicly after a 40-year career, which was otherwise pretty scandal-free until 2023’s queue-gate. But in the first episode of Cast Away, it still feels as though everyone else is to blame for that trauma and Schofield is less willing to discuss his own part in it.

‘When you throw someone under the bus, you’ve got to have a really bloody good reason to do it,’ he says. He still sounds like someone who is more sorry he got caught than deeply regrets what they did.

I hope there was more growth than what is shown in Cast Away. Perhaps the real reflection began when he got back.  

Cast Away feels more like Schofield’s last shot to start a new chapter, turn over a new leaf with the public and maybe start again.

But for his own sake, it should be his goodbye to television. Goodbye to his own fascination with his public image and the chance to really start a new life as Phillip Schofield, father, husband and whatever else he chooses to be away from the camera.