Upstairs Downstairs, Sunday 19 February 2012, BBC1

 It’s September 1938 and a return to 165 Eaton Place in London’s Belgravia, home of Lord and Lady Holland (a very stiff upper lip pairing) and a bunch of servants, yes, them wot lives downstairs. Britain is on the brink of war and preparing for the worst.

Lady Agnes Holland has just had her baby and is recovering in what looks like a very posh maternity ward (no squeaky trollies or 6am pain-killer wake-ups for her!) Of course she looks very serene and prim (not that I’m bitter or anything), and not at all like someone who has just had a botched c-section. She decides there is far too much going on out there to stay in hospital, so discharges herself. On arriving home, her recently deceased mother-in-law’s half-sister (get all that?) Dr Blanche Mottershead (played by Alex ‘ER/Dr Who’ Kingston) comes rushing to her and says “My dear, you look absolutely frightful!” Charming welcome, well you can always count on your family to tell it like it is!

Lord Hallam Holland (say his name aloud and loads of times quite fast and it’s very funny) is meanwhile pacing around the programme looking like a very stressed chap. He’s something big and important to do with the Foreign Office and is part responsible (with Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlin) for preventing Mr Hitler from starting “an all out ideological war.” I don’t envy his job, as I imagine Hitler wasn’t the easiest guy to negotiate peace with. Lord Hallam comes across as a bit emotionally retarded and prim (which of course they were in those days) but I just want to loosen the top button on his starchy shirt and tell him to “chill Winston!” He frowns a lot as well with his uni-brow distracting me a bit too often. His hair is very smart though. When all is not going well with his negotiations he has a house meeting with his staff and family “from tonight this house prepares for war!” Stirring stuff. 

 I’ve spent too long deciphering them upstairs, so a bit about the folk below. Mr Pritchard the head butler is very camp and very bossy. It’s as if he thinks he is running Buckingham Palace. He looks like he is sucking a bumblebee most of the time and rolls his eyes a lot, a few decades later he would have been great alongside Mrs Slocombe and co in Are You Being Served. The servant cast isn’t as big or plentiful as Downton, but just enough so that the Hollands don’t ever have to lift a finger or open a door for themselves.

Mr Amanjit, a sikh, was formally the man-servant of the late matriarch Lady Holland, and is obviously lost at not having his late mistress around. On placing her ashes on the mantle piece, he is interrupted by the smoking Dr Blanche Mottershead who asks “Were you ever lovers?” I say old girl, that’s awful private and quite an introductory question seeing as the two of you have never met! He seems mighty cheesed off by this, and the rest of their scenes together consist of them trying to outstare each other. My money is on Alex Kingston given all her hospital and space monster fighting experience.

The cook is typically motherly and opinionated and she’s not best pleased when Dr Blanche (who is now getting up everyone’s nose) gives her a list of healthy hippy foods Lady Agnes should be eating post-birth. “Lady Agnes doesn’t need vitamins, she needs liver!” A new edition this series is Beryl, a young nursing assistant who is just earning enough money so she can one day train somewhere posh in London doing hair and nails (she already looks pretty enough to fit that role.)  I think she will have a few more jobs to do other than boiling smelly nappies, including a bit of a romance with chauffer Sparso. Sparso (sounds like a Kirk Douglas film) is a bit of a looker and a ladies man (having recently had an illicit affair with Lady Percy – more about her later.) He reminds me of Hugo Speer in The Full Monty, he’s got quite a square jaw, though I bet he is good at driving the Holland’s to the shops and back. 

 As part of their war efforts, everyone in the house is fitted with gas masks. Lady Agnes asks what provision there are for newborns. Pritchard (ever the brown noser) brings out a black “gas proof pram” which looks like something from The Addams Family, and even has its own chimney. Creepy. John (the young footman, token good-but-not-very-bright-lad) decides to check how safe the pram is for a baby, and uses Solomon (the late Lady Holland’s creepy looking monkey) as his lab rat. He places the monkey in said pram inside the garage then turns the car engine on and floods the place with fumes. You can guess the outcome. “It’s heart has arrested John, get the brandy” shouts Pritchard as he tries to give the furry thing CPR (it’s like Animal Hospital, but without Rolf Harris interrupting.) No good though. Solomon the monkey gets killed off (quite glad, sorry monkey lovers everywhere) but he was only marginally less annoying then the inclusion of Ja Ja Binks in Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace. The house is disturbed that night by the Police turning up to investigate the monkey’s death. A floppy jowled moustached Police Sergeant immediately suspects that the monkey has been gassed, judging by the colour of it’s gums which are pink like cherryade. Thus comes my favourite line of the episode “I’m not familiar with cherryade Sergeant!” says an irritated Lord Hallam rather sternly in his fetching silk dressing gown. I love the way he says the word cherryade like it’s some foreign object from a far away land.

Mr Amanjit is not in a great mood this episode what with the monkey karking it, Maude busy-bottom interfering and bossing him around and the revelation that Pritchard was a conscientious objector during the First World War. So, to let off a bit of steam he goes into the garden and starts crazily firing his pistol at some tin cans. Lady Agnes and Dr Blanche Busy-Bottom come running out to see what the commotion is, Blache sees that this nonsense is stopped in a very British tone of voice as she addresses the gawping servants “The spectacle has ended, and as we are in England I suggest you make some tea.” Yep, that’s right, put a brew on peasants. 

They all make friends in the end and realise they have all been a bit silly. Lady Agnes does her bit in the absence of her husband to rally the troops and addresses them at their servants table with a rousing (and breathless) posh speech: “We all fit into this household in a different way, we come and go through different doors, we eat our meals at separate tables. But, we all give 165 Eaton Place as our address, and that means we are on the same side!” Hurrah lashing of ginger beer! Keeley (Ashes to Ashes) Hawes as Lady Agnes reminds me of something from Watch With Mother or Enid Blynton reading stories to little boys and girls. Intense RP and all so hoity toity and breathless whenever she speaks, it’s a shame, as she always ends up being the posh girl. She appears out of nowhere in quite a few of the shots and one of her lines makes me cringe: “Come upstairs and kiss the children Hallam. They are the future.” Ok love, it’s only a kiss on the forehead, no-need to ply anymore pressure on the guy whose trying to prevent the start of WW2. Anyway, that line sounds like something from a Micheal Jackson song.

Next thing we know, Hallam is over in Berlin doing man’s work, trying to sort this war thing out. His other more personal mission is to get his wife’s sister back from Berlin. Lady Percy (full name Lady Persephone Towyn, no wonder she shortened it) is a bit of a 1930s It Girl, she loves flirting, smoking, drinking expensive vodka (no Spar stuff for her) and flirting with lots of men (among other things.) She doesn’t seem to have a care in the world and shimmies around in her fitted red dress and bright red lipstick lips. Hallam spots her in an upmarket Berlin hotel doing all of the above (cue lots of fake laughter) and immediately disapproves. He walks her home and demands that she comes back to England with him, warning her of the danger she is in by remaining in Berlin. In a wooden manner (i.e. barely moving his face as he speaks) he says “You can leave with me tomorrow. I can take you home.” “No” she replies lunging towards him and giving him a long lingering kiss on the lips “But I may come and wave you off” (which she pronounces ‘orff’.) Hallam doesn’t exactly react the way you would hope your husband would react if your sister snogged him (I smell a future plotline.) 

There will be inevitable comparisons to Downton, but Upstairs Downstairs feels much posher and more serious than its ITV rival (the politics of impending war was given much more time in this episode, than the whole of the First World War, which in Downton was summarised up in 2 episodes!) I don’t think either channel need worry, we all like a nice bit of period drama on a Sunday night either way. Anyway, I’d quite like to see a posh-off between Lady Agnes Holland and The Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith) and see how that ends. Upstairs Downton-stairs…mmmm just imagine.

The Biggest Loser, Tuesday 7 February 2012, ITV1

 ITV1’s latest reality show pitches overweight contestants against each other, in a bid to become the biggest weight loser of the series. It’s all high drama, over the top music, voice overs, twinkly piano music montages and shots of the contestants pouring their hearts out and saying how life changing this is for them, as they struggle to reduce their waist lines. The first thing that strikes me about this programme is that it is sponsored by Subway and their low fat range. Yes, you read correctly Subway. Not the most obvious of sponsorship partnerships, as daily visits to the awful smelling sandwich chain and the continual devouring of those 77 foot long sandwiches could clearly be one cause of weight problems (sorry now for insulting any Subway fans out there.)

Ooo, wait, hostess with the mostest Davina is doing her voice over summary, now customary at the start of every show: “13 contestants began a weight loss journey to change their lives forever…” Cue cutting shots of each couple (they come to the show as couples) starring out at the camera as if they are Braveheart about to lead his men into battle with the English. In a way it also reminds me of the opening titles of Little Britain as well, or even the X-Factor contestant shots at the beginning (but without the annoying voice over man “Rachel Ad-a-dayyy-jeee”) Davina of course is super slim and super made up in her spray on white dress, all smooth skin and Lo-real hair (can’t be bothered to check the spelling) and in comparison (rather cruelly) to the other contestants looks like an advert for her work out DVD (in all good stores now.)

They dress the contestants in bright coloured t-shirts and cycling shorts (like an old advert for C & A) and they are split into colour coded teams. 7 contestants remain and we are in week 6 (can you feel the tension!?) This week they are being sent to “the land of temptation” America, or Florida to be more precise. There are 3 trainers hoping to whip the contestants into shape, one of them looks like Golumn from Lord of the Rings (that would be scary enough to get me to lose a few bags of sugar) and has piercing blue eyes (but in a scary “you will run 32 miles this morning” way.) Let’s cut to one of the contestants describing her reaction to going to Florida: “I’m hungry, I want some food, and I ain’t talking about cous cous” moans Jesssie (well, Jesse I do have to agree with you there, cous cous doesn’t fill me up either!) Jessie’s comment is interspersed with glorious shots of burger flipping, hot dogs and French fries, and lots of greasy fatty things (man, this is making me hungry, this show is so counter productive!) 

The white team’s trainer is Charlotte Ord, who is all tanned and perfect in her white strappy vest top and invisible hips, she probably eats air for breakfast. We are only 6 minutes into the show (yes I know I write a lot) and we’ve been reminded that Florida is the “land of excess” at least 4 times (enough already! I thought Florida was the land of Mickey Mouse.) Among the greasy burger montages we have a few too many clips of the contestants walking along the sunny beach looking ponderous with the wind whipping at their hair (oh look, isn’t that the Hoff running along behind them!?) Trainer no 3 (who reminds me of a taller John Regis) says “They have a job to do, they have weight to lose.” Thanks Mr Trainer for stating the blooming obvious.

The trainers get to work and make the contestants work out on the beach. Golumn is loving it. The contestants look very uncomfortable and I’m worried at any point one of them is going to keel over in the sand. 

After the ad break the teams get taken to an American Football field where there are 100 footballs (even though they look like rugby balls) on the field all positioned for a challenge. We have Gladiator music playing at full belt as the teams walk out (looking serious of course.) The white team is the only team with 3 contestants, the others have 2 in them. So, everyone tries to get Sarah white team out. I don’t get the challenge, it all seems pointless, but it involves running (or mainly walking) back and forth and collecting as many balls as possible. It’s sweaty work. The black team win and get a 2 point weight advantage at this week’s weigh in.

Next challenge involves a traditional American dinner, with amazing looking burgers. All part of the “American Food Dilemma” say white vest top wearing woman trainer (who comes up with these stupid names!?) One contestant says “The bacon double cheeseburger looked great, like a heart attack, but nice” (never thought I’d hear the words ‘heart attack’ and ‘nice’ in the same sentence.) There is a line of fatty looking foods on the counter and the challenge is to guess how many calories are in each food by sticking in a numbered flag. It’s like food maths basically. Wait-a-minute….they have apple pie topped with cheese?! (710 calories if you are interested.) What the….?? Only in Florida ‘”the land of excess” eh! Not sure whether Mr Kipling would stand for that. Peanut Butter shake…mmm (wow 1,100 calories) when can I go to this diner!

It’s a tie-break between the blue and white team. The tie-breaker is to guess how many calories are in onion rings. Ooo smell the oniony tension. Blue team win with their answer, the whites guess 300 calories (even I knew it was higher than that white team!) Bitchy Kevin from the blue team is very bitchy and competitive and you can imagine he probably memorises the calories on everything, he seems like a calorie geek. 

The most exciting bit of the show now – the weigh in (sounds like boxing doesn’t it, but I’m not sure how well these guys would fair in the ring.) The contestants are lead out and look like a bunch of dead men walking (all they need is shackles around their ankles and orange jump suits.) Davina, meanwhile, is waiting in the Florida sunshine looking all perfect and slim and straight from a Lo-real advert. Bitchy blue team Kevin wants the white team to record a poor weight loss (I say chap, that’s not very sporting) I get the feeling he doesn’t like the whites. Big shock, Tamara hasn’t lost a single pound, glum faces everywhere. Black team Oirish Gerard now, who has lost enough pounds to make him just over 15 stone and seems really thrilled: “I haven’t been 15 stone since I was a little boy” (worrying that he weighed that much when he was younger  L) Blue team Kevin up next (who I secretly want to have not lost very much cause he’s so opinionated) who only loses 4 pounds, John Regis lookey likey instructor is not impressed: “It’s not good enough for a man Kevin’s size.” Welshy Sarah is next on the scales, but oh no let’s cut to the adverts, ruining the weighing moment for another 3 minutes.

And we are back…I can’t help noticing Davina is wearing a totally different colour dress now. Mmm, continuity person anyone?! Sarah’s weight loss is 2 pounds, not good when her loss will decide what colour team is up for elimination this week. Oh dear. “Not a great week for any of you” Davina says helpfully. More Davina now in her ever changing colour dress: “The white team you are all up for elimination, one of you will be leaving the biggest loser” (bet she really wanted to say “one of you will be leaving the Big Brother house!” but had to calmly stop herself.) Kevin, as smug as ever is pleased he’s “cut the white team down to size” (all sounds a bit butchery to me.) 

So, elimation time. Davina in big hula hoop earrings and summery dress, does her best to direct the tension. Only the other white team members can vote who they want to give the boot. Amy Mac (what a great name, sounds like a song from the 60s) says “this was one of the hardest decisions” (don’t they all say that, every reality voting related show, yawn.) Anyway, she shocks everyone by voting for Tamara (who frankly always seemed ‘not bovvered’). However, there is then REAL(ity) DRAMA as everyone is thoroughly peed off she has not chosen to get rid of nemesis Sarah. Mr bitchy Kevin matter of factly states: “Amy broke the pact by eliminating Tamara” (the others had made a pact to get rid of Sarah, not very sportingly I say boys and girls.) Tamara doesn’t leave empty handed, oh no. She gets a consolation prize of a year’s free membership to her local gym (for all we know she might not have a local gym) and (get this) a year’s free subscription to the Biggest Loser online club (wooo!), plug that ITV1 product Davina! Plug plug! Cher-ching. She looks gutted, but I bet she was at least a little relieved to get away from Davina’s gang of psycho trainers and the contestants who think that their weight loss will be improved by being bitchy!

The Fabulous Baker Brothers, Wednesday 1 February 2012, Channel4

The FBB (I’ll abbreviate cause I’m lazy) starts with a shot of Tom and Henry Herbert, our bakery boys, outside their food empire (a butchers and a bakers, the grocer and clerks was probably down the road) arms folded, looking a little menacing and ready to man-bake (a bit like a softer more posher version of the Mitchell brothers, but with more hair and less frown.) And so the first of many voice overs start (and we haven’t even run the opening titles yet.) “I’m Tom and I’m an artisan baker” (interestingly, on the first episode of this series he would start with ‘I’m  Tom and I’m a master baker” strangely this was dropped after the first instalment. Mmmm, I wonder why. Ahem.) Then his little brother drops in and says “I’m Henry and I’m an award winning chef.” I don’t know why, but when they do these little introductions it reminds me of those Janet and John books from the 1950s. So introductions over, oh no wait, here’s some more introductory musings. “We’re not just neighbours, we’re brothers…this is baking for boys!” Who wrote this script!!?

This week’s culinary half hour is on budget food, which is hard to imagine when you can probably expect to pay a fair whack for the foodie products in their shops. Anyway, onto the cooking. They make some bite-sized burgers (or sliders as we must now call them) and Tom tells us we just have to make our own baps. They wizz through the method a bit too quickly and helpfully tell us it needs 60 minutes. Just to illustrate what 60 minutes looks like, they scribble the number 60 on a blackboard and add a frantic underline and exclamation mark. This blackboard scene seems to feature quite heavily. I suspect they are showing off that they have a blackboard in their kitchen. Big whoop.

We quickly flick back to Henry (who bears a striking resemblance to previous Masterchef winner Tomisina Myers. He could be her culinary long lost brother, seriously) whose sliders are coming along well. Mmmm, beef. Oh, back to big brother Tom again (with strategic dustings of flour on his black GAP t-shirt) and his baps are still proving (by this time most normal people would have paid for a pack of 6 buns from Tesco and been on their way home.) Anyway, the sliders look great and the boys suggest two options for toppings: tomato and lettuce or beetroot, watercress and a big dollop of horseradish. Mmmm, hard comparison, where is the mention of Tommy K please?! They both look thoroughly pleased with their final product as they sink their jaws into their meaty doughy masterpieces (but then again they always look pleased with themselves.)

Pie Wars. Oh dear, an unfortunate weekly part of the show. Let the cringe begin. Tom says “When we’re not scoffing or baking, we have a healthy appetite for brotherly competition, so bring on the pie wars!” The boys basically go head to head to see who can make the best pie. It’s all very public school playground and my conker is bigger than your conker sort of thing. But first they discuss this week’s pie audience who they will be making the pies for. Cue shot of our two posh bakery boys in their perfect pinnies sat on the arms of a beat up old sofa (I always wondered what happened to Lovejoy’s old cast off’s) in a distressed sort of shabby chic loft apartment, all bare brick walls and steel (I never knew the Cotswolds could be so urban.) The challenge this week is to make a pie for students which is delicious, cheap to make and with a mash potato topping. Henry helps them both out by making a start on the mash topping. His tip is to add an egg yolk in at the end while you are mashing ‘bam, mash with attitude’ grins Henry to the camera (we have lots of masculine exclamations when they cook, to remind us that this is baking for boys.) Henry also says ‘luverly’ a lot (so much so I want to create a drinking game in its honour.)

Then all of a sudden we’re onto toast (arghh just stick to the pie war thing, do it, then move on!!!) Henry walks to camera wafting some posh bit of bread (definitely not a slice of Asda savers bread), they seem to like to walk around a lot in this programme, almost as if to show off their expansive butchers and bakery empire. “There’s nothing quite like beans on toast” says one of them (I forget which one, sometimes their voices merge into one.) And so Henry starts his super pimped up beans on toast (Mr Heinz close your ears now.) He does however, try to make us lazy can obsessed bean lovers out there feel a bit better by saying “I like a ready made can of beans as much as the next person, but this DIY version is cheap, quick and to die for!” It all looks super nice and much more appealing than Tom’s smoky mackerel pate. Yuck! Me no like fish on toast! The best bit about the mackerel thing is when Tom says “Fish and lemon go together like Beyonce and Jay-Z!” Tom, look I know you’re trying to be down with the kids with this reference, but really comparing Mr and Mrs Beyonce with a fruit and a bit of smoked fish: No.

As is now customary after each bit of cooking up by the boys, there is the obligatory shot of them sat on their table (come on, these are men, they don’t use knife and forks and tables and chairs. Grrrrrr!) hungrily biting their prize products like two ravenous lions, and licking their lips with that we-are-so-great-at-cooking face. 

Back to pie wars. Though not without some more classic voice over stuff “While my little brother Henry woos the ladies in his butchers shop, I make my pie for hard working students.” Tom goes forth and makes a fish pie with prawns, watercress and a smoked kipper (I thought this was supposed to be a cheap pie Tom!?) Anyway, they go and see some stereotypical students who are going to test out their pies. The boys look like fishes out of water as they enter the student digs and complain of a “funky smell.” Not surprisingly Henry’s shepherds pie wins. Tom looks dejected. Loser.

Next is toad in the hole. Which frankly looks yummy. However, I’m distracted by the overly choreographed nature of their cooking. From Tom to Henry then back again, it’s like The Chuckle Brothers’ ‘to me to you.’ They have little bits of banter which is heavily scripted. ‘Bosh!’ they both say in unison and hi-fiving as they walk away from their artisan bread oven to let the toad in the hole cook. If they were more naked and there was a volleyball involved, it would be like that scene from Top Gun (you all know the one.) 

 

Although the boys’ food looks amazing, and I’m sure tastes pretty damm good, the programme is too heavily scripted and edited. There is far too much cheese (and I’m not talking Stilton) and the cring-ometer is cranked up a little too much, especially during the pie wars. Watching the end credits I noticed the programme has an art director, a food stylist and a senior food stylist. Do the sausages have their own wardrobe too?! You can’t help but feel that the programme has lost some of it’s cookery appeal and is more about the novelty of the boys’ cheery personalities than following their recipes. Give me an hour of Jamie any day.