Do you like Neighbours, but think it doesn't feature quite enough petulant, benny-chucking bratlets? If so, you're in for a treat, as Lily Allen has just filmed a cameo that will be making the UK's airwaves that little bit more tediously gobby this September. But will her short stint as a soap star be as appalling as any of these other awful celebrity cameos?
Back in the early '80s, any man who minced into a Midwestern watering hole while festooned in Max Factor would have been tied up and used as a pinata before he could order his vermouth. However, when Boy George turned up in The A Team, the rednecks in the local boozer didn't raise an eyebrow – when surely he deserved to be strung up for his hammy acting alone.
It's not just Ramsay Street that wins the occasional visit from the b-list. Back when Michael Palin was filming his Around the World in 80 Days opus, he dropped in on Home and Away, where he stalked Fisher and Marilyn down the beach while mugging infuriatingly. "Are there sharks in the water?" he asked. We're surprised they didn't push him in so he could find out first-hand.
To celebrate 40 years of sudsy cobbles, the bosses of Coronation Street thought a live episode would be a wheeze and promptly invited Prince Charles to take part. However, we were denied half an hour of HRH staring into the cameras, fluffing his lines and asking the Rovers barmaids what they did for a living, as his segment was entirely pre-recorded. What a swiz.
In a bid to confirm to viewers in the north that London is solely populated by effete ponces, Brookside spin-off South saw Tracey Corkhill in an accidental meeting of minds with Morrissey. "I know who you are!", she screeched, as the Smiths frontman eyed her like he would a cow's carcass. The most pointless 40 seconds of soap opera ever – and we didn't even get a rendition of Sheila (Grant), Take A Bow.
And this isn't the only instance of Brookside playing host to the minor celebrity. To celebrate St. Patrick's Day at Bar Brookie, various Nolan Sisters, Graham Norton and Carol Smillie popped in for a pint of Guinness, and a string of not-so-hilarious events left Carol locked in the lav. "The dairty mare!" sniffed barmaid Bev, as the rest of us prayed for another cul-de-sac siege.
The steel gates around the Chester suburb of Hollyoaks only part for the beautiful. Fact. So we're assuming they must have melted when confronted with the wizened mush of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who popped into the soap for three episodes during a convoluted storyline arc that saw one of the identikit dollybirds plucked for West End stardom. You don't get that on Zoo Days.
There's always been a whiff of the focus group when it comes to Ugly Betty – and the eau de fromage was never more eye-watering than the time they roped in part-time jeans seamstress and full-time media whore Victoria Beckham to play Wilhelmina's bridesmaid. Zzz. How many more times do we need to see Posh sending herself up? Still, it wasn't quite as bad as our next entry...
OK. We know she didn't play herself, but Geri Halliwell's mercifully brief turn in Sex and the City was like somebody interrupting a swanky cocktail party with a gigantic fart. She managed to pack her 30 seconds with more frantic overacting than Sarah Jessica Parker managed in all six series, and Geri hasn't been invited in front of a camera since. Awful. Just awful.
Still, the award for Most Dreadful TV Cameo goes to Tony Blair, who mugged his way through an unlikely sketch with Catherine Tate's stroppy teenager Lauren in aid of Comic Relief. Cue half an hour of them hilariously telling each other that they weren't "bovverd", as a nation cringed. Thought that was bad? Just you wait until it's David Cameron and Vicky Pollard...