It’s getting to that time isn’t it? Our reality TV avalanche is thundering along merrily, wiping all before it away like a spitty hankie on an ice cream covered toddler.
The problem is… like that toddler, we were enjoying that ice cream and having it replaced with parental gob whether we want it or not can be a bit distressing.
I don’t watch TOWIE, or MIC or GS because, well, I just can’t. It’s a physical reaction like when my sphincter tries to run up inside my body and hide behind my kidneys when I watch Embarrassing Bodies. My reaction to watching the semi-real but still nut-crushingly mundane lives of ‘some people’ gets me so angry I nearly ate my own chin when a BAFTA- that’s right a f*****G BAFTA! Was handed out to these vacant lots in the name of entertainment.
I can’t live with that level of anger in my life. That’s how wars start.
I can watch EB, albeit lying like an ironing board and peering through the fingers of one hand, because it’s incredibly educational, gripping and necessary. A frank program about medical taboos is long overdue and I applaud the makers and those brave enough to get their hair and make-up done and wave at the kids down the lens just before it pulls focus on their knotted labia. I can just imagine the conversation when they return to an angry child who believed a close-up of their mothers cervix was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
I can of course, watch talent shows.
Presently we have, BGT, The Voice and The Apprentice. I’m putting the latter in the list of ‘talent’ because it stopped being anything to do with serious business about eight seconds after the first candidate spoke at the start of series two. Now it’s all about who can be the biggest moron and prove, beyond any doubt at all, that the ability to proclaim yourself almost god-like is so easy even a halfwit who can’t do basic sums can do it as long as they’re wearing a suit.
They talk ‘Branson’, they walk ‘Branston’ (thick, made almost entirely of vegetable matter and, in Luisa’s case, goes down well after a little pork).
So that leaves us with BGT and The Voice- what a choice (poetry comes as standard).
We’re about to head into the live finals of both. Jessie’s hair is about to disappear like the promises of stardom she doles out to everyone and Uncle Tom is, perhaps, finally going to stand up, point at Will and shout, “What is he saying?”
For a while it looked like some musical theatre bods were actually going to get the chance to be voted for by real people but a quiet word on Will’s ear had him yanking the handbrake and sending the clearly better Liam home and illustrating that the only keys he understands are on the keyboard of his ‘autotune-o-gram’ [dope edition].
Over on BGT, or Simon’s private fluffer auditions as it’s veered dangerously towards becoming, we witnessed a scene that took me back to my days of working at a Blackpool nightclub in the 80s. Loads of badly dressed under-aged hopefuls waiting hours just to be sent home… and a couple of drag queens.
So all in all, the search for actual talent seems pretty hopeless. Getting through on BGT is easier than beating Mr. Chips off ‘Catchphrase’ at poker… “Hmmm, he seems to be sitting on a toilet and wearing a crown… I think I’ll fold!” And getting through to the finals of The Voice is easy as long as you sound like you smoke thirty a day and desperately want to be Ed Sheeran or Adelle and have never even hummed the melody to “I Dreamed a Dream.”
BGT live finals start tonight and run every night till it’s all over and Sico Productions can buy another country but we’ll have to endure another 7 shows spread over several weeks before we get to see who will be crowned winner of The Voice and guaranteed anonymity forever more. Could you pick Leanne Mitchel out of a crowd? Nope, me neither.
Oh well, if it all ends up being one big vacuous cloud of hype in the name of ratings at least they’ll be able to walk into any lead role in the West End, aint that right Jessie?
by Peter Lawrence is a business book with a difference. Far from being a straight business book it also has exercises, questions and case studies. Along with a summary at the end and some great ideas and anecdotes. The book works your brain by quizzing you about the case studies and giving you an exercise.
