The Only Way Is Down
Saw There's No Place like Tyrone last night.
Now I wouldn't call myself an aficionado of "constructed reality" television broadcasting, as it appears to be improv by non-actors reacting to a series of rooms, but I'm thinking the Northern Irish version of reality TV doesn't look quite the same as other region's reality TV. And that is surely to be applauded. Nobody is going to go away from TNPLT (catchy) with an unrealistic body image. Actually Bobby, a cheerfully unintelligible farmer from (gasp) Donegal, has an always surprising body shape. I don't want to get into fat shaming and Bobby seems far from ashamed - but I couldn't take my eyes off his unmade bed of a shirt hanging over his belt like a flying buttress. He looks like the most unapologetic cattle rustler I've ever seen: he sticks it down his v neck and he's off on his way.
TNPLT was a peculiar programme. I've been thinking about it a lot. I presume there was an auditioning process for this but you wouldn't know it. Perhaps there was like a local lottery or jury service or the draft, but it didn't looks as if even bone-spurs could keep you out of TNPLT if you had a Tyrone postcode. It was hard to see what it was that lent these people their star power. Apart from Bobby and his girlfriend Lynda, the obvious King and Queen Bee of the set, no one else really lit up the screen. There was a peroxide business woman having a bit of stilted chat and a foot-massage in an animal print dressing-gown. There was a beautician cum farmer who took her friends (or at least her telly friends - like Jamie Oliver's dining posse) clay-pigeon shooting to no obvious end. Nothing happened.
It was Lynda's birthday. Bobby had organised a surprise party but Lynda didn't like surprises, except that she was ultimately fine with surprises, despite the one thing every one knew about Lynda being that she did not like surprises. Bobby had bought her some sheep which he had nicknamed The Spice Girls (no, they've reformed - he's not thirty years out of date, you are) and he was hiding them. As a bit of sneaky subterfuge he was going to buy her some decoy lingerie. But being a man he had no idea what he was doing*, lol, and so some young women had to help him buy his girlfriend's birthday pants. Hold the phone: a middle-aged man gets two younger women to help him buy women's underwear? Dear Penthouse...
Of course it was all completely above board. The girls showed him various bit and pieces of mumsy bed-wear and he grunted and smiled in a chair, belly spread out before him like a counterpane, keeping his knees warm. Imagine this scene in TOWIE or Made in Chelsea and you would have a relief map of every tattoo on the girl's bodies. Here they wave a dressing gown at him and he makes a purchase. I say again: nothing happens in this programme. The artificial set-ups that the production team have invented have nothing in them. There's no drama, no conflict, no pay off. I like the idea of a benign reality TV programme: screaming tattooed idiots tearing strips off each other and flinging drinks at one another is boring and obvious. Its also lazy but it works because people like rubber-necking. If you're going to make a programme about basically nice, uncomplicated people that doesn't rely on fabricated conflict you need to replace that conflict with something, anything. The programme makers haven't bothered their arses here: they've stranded these people in rooms, cutting away slightly too late so that they sit there looking mildly confused as they have nothing more to contribute to that scene. They look like proper charlies and its not their fault.
Eventually Lynda meets her sheep. As Bobby takes her out to show them to her they cut back to his face in the studio several times, as he grins and winks, adding nothing of any consequence to the big reveal. But Lynda likes the sheep. Phew.
This is from the makers of Beauty Queen and Single and whatever that Vinnie Hurrell thing was that died on its arse. I'm not sure this is going to be their breakaway pop hit, but I'm sure it will do okay in the ratings - the people of Northern Ireland like nothing more than seeing people from Northern Ireland on the telly. Maybe it's because they weren't really allowed on telly for such a long time - it does feel novel. Weirdly, there are only three episodes in this series but we're promised country singing and a black tie event in a tent. I am inching ever nearer the edge of my seat.
*what are we like?
Now I wouldn't call myself an aficionado of "constructed reality" television broadcasting, as it appears to be improv by non-actors reacting to a series of rooms, but I'm thinking the Northern Irish version of reality TV doesn't look quite the same as other region's reality TV. And that is surely to be applauded. Nobody is going to go away from TNPLT (catchy) with an unrealistic body image. Actually Bobby, a cheerfully unintelligible farmer from (gasp) Donegal, has an always surprising body shape. I don't want to get into fat shaming and Bobby seems far from ashamed - but I couldn't take my eyes off his unmade bed of a shirt hanging over his belt like a flying buttress. He looks like the most unapologetic cattle rustler I've ever seen: he sticks it down his v neck and he's off on his way.
TNPLT was a peculiar programme. I've been thinking about it a lot. I presume there was an auditioning process for this but you wouldn't know it. Perhaps there was like a local lottery or jury service or the draft, but it didn't looks as if even bone-spurs could keep you out of TNPLT if you had a Tyrone postcode. It was hard to see what it was that lent these people their star power. Apart from Bobby and his girlfriend Lynda, the obvious King and Queen Bee of the set, no one else really lit up the screen. There was a peroxide business woman having a bit of stilted chat and a foot-massage in an animal print dressing-gown. There was a beautician cum farmer who took her friends (or at least her telly friends - like Jamie Oliver's dining posse) clay-pigeon shooting to no obvious end. Nothing happened.
It was Lynda's birthday. Bobby had organised a surprise party but Lynda didn't like surprises, except that she was ultimately fine with surprises, despite the one thing every one knew about Lynda being that she did not like surprises. Bobby had bought her some sheep which he had nicknamed The Spice Girls (no, they've reformed - he's not thirty years out of date, you are) and he was hiding them. As a bit of sneaky subterfuge he was going to buy her some decoy lingerie. But being a man he had no idea what he was doing*, lol, and so some young women had to help him buy his girlfriend's birthday pants. Hold the phone: a middle-aged man gets two younger women to help him buy women's underwear? Dear Penthouse...
Of course it was all completely above board. The girls showed him various bit and pieces of mumsy bed-wear and he grunted and smiled in a chair, belly spread out before him like a counterpane, keeping his knees warm. Imagine this scene in TOWIE or Made in Chelsea and you would have a relief map of every tattoo on the girl's bodies. Here they wave a dressing gown at him and he makes a purchase. I say again: nothing happens in this programme. The artificial set-ups that the production team have invented have nothing in them. There's no drama, no conflict, no pay off. I like the idea of a benign reality TV programme: screaming tattooed idiots tearing strips off each other and flinging drinks at one another is boring and obvious. Its also lazy but it works because people like rubber-necking. If you're going to make a programme about basically nice, uncomplicated people that doesn't rely on fabricated conflict you need to replace that conflict with something, anything. The programme makers haven't bothered their arses here: they've stranded these people in rooms, cutting away slightly too late so that they sit there looking mildly confused as they have nothing more to contribute to that scene. They look like proper charlies and its not their fault.
Eventually Lynda meets her sheep. As Bobby takes her out to show them to her they cut back to his face in the studio several times, as he grins and winks, adding nothing of any consequence to the big reveal. But Lynda likes the sheep. Phew.
This is from the makers of Beauty Queen and Single and whatever that Vinnie Hurrell thing was that died on its arse. I'm not sure this is going to be their breakaway pop hit, but I'm sure it will do okay in the ratings - the people of Northern Ireland like nothing more than seeing people from Northern Ireland on the telly. Maybe it's because they weren't really allowed on telly for such a long time - it does feel novel. Weirdly, there are only three episodes in this series but we're promised country singing and a black tie event in a tent. I am inching ever nearer the edge of my seat.
*what are we like?
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