Atlantis star Sarah Parish: 'The X Factor makes me sick'

Sarah Parish has criticised The X Factor, saying that vulnerable people are being ridiculed for entertainment.

The Atlantis star said that she could not bear to watch the ITV show.

She told the Radio Times: "Watching The X Factor makes me feel sick.

"When somebody obviously awful goes on and there might be something wrong with them, but they've been allowed on a television show anyway, that makes a bit of me die."

Asked what she would ban, Sarah, 45, said she was a fan of Strictly Come Dancing, but added: "TOWIE, Made In Chelsea, and Geordie Shore. They're just unbearable, such a bad influence on people and brain-numbing."

The former Cutting It star said: "I'm desperate to do comedy. Over the last four years I've played a lot of grumpy, evil people.

"I'd like to go to work and bounce about all day, rather than poke dolls with pins or put spells on people."

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.