Joanne the Coach

Television - Is It Ever What It Seems?

I have to own up to a bit of TV fakery.  You see that dashing cravat I was wearing on Between The Headlines last night?  Well, it's not mine.  It's the make-up lady's.  Despite having written an article on what to wear on TV, and a book on how to do a good TV interview, I still managed to pitch up to the studio in a top that was deemed too racy for the Press TV audience.

This was something of a surprise, as I have long been a fan of the 'wear as many clothes as you can, then pile some more on' style of dress.  (It keeps you nice and toasty in the winter, but can be something of an endurance test in the summer).

Ah well, I still maintain that it's good to get things wrong on a regular basis.  Making mistakes is a vital sign that you're alive and not just a robot in a wig.

Also on the box, it's good to see Ant and Dec back on Saturday night ITV.  During their short-lived pop career, I was once assigned to look after them when they came in to This Morning to promote their latest single.  Old hands at TM gave me the same advice repeatedly - Watch out for The Girls.

Apparently A & D were notorious for their band of female followers who trailed them everywhere they went.  One sniff of the boys in the studio and we would be beseiged by hundreds of screaming females.  Extra security, dogs, tanks etc would be needed for the imminent invasion.

So when I was talking to the duo's management about the arrangements for the appearance, I mentioned that I'd heard that they were usually followed by a manic fan gang.  Exactly how much extra security did they think we'd need?  "Oh don't worry about that" came the reply, "I haven't told the girls to turn up this week."

So it was all a trick!  A management ploy to give Geordie pintpots a Beatles-esque air.

And then the backing band turned up to mime to the track, and the drummer asked if he could borrow a copy of the single they were promoting.  Not only had he not played on it - he'd never even heard it before either!  Another trick.

I doubt if the lovely A & D were ever aware of the amount of camouflage surrounding them.  Or maybe there's only actually one of them, and the whole smoke and mirrors thing goes deeper than we thought.

Good Grief, I'm Having a Flashback - The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle

Did you see the new Jennifer Saunders/Tanya Byron comedy show, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle, last night?  It's a sitcom about a daytime talk show.  Having worked on more TV talk shows* than should be legal, it felt more like a documentary rather than a comedy to me. So in future episodes I look forward to:

• Production staff referring to programme guests as "pond life" (prompting presenters to ask "How pondy are they?" about each show's guests);
• People being paid to cry onscreen.  Worse than that, people being paid to reunite with long lost relatives ("Yes I will come and meet my long lost sister, but I'll need £100 to turn up").  And your favourite and mine, the classic people being paid to propose.
• Guests being offered only doughnuts and sweets before a show, so they go on air on the crest of a sugar rush.
• Producers thinking that a show about orgies is a terrific idea for a daytime TV show, and laughing hysterically when viewers with children phone up to complain.

The only bit that didn't ring true was the producer with a child (albeit one she didn't see). You'll find precious few working mothers on daytime TV - shame, because it might improve the shows if more of the people making them had experience of life as it is lived by their viewers.

*Though I never worked on Kilroy.  People who'd worked on Kilroy tended to shudder in an uncontrollable way when they talked about it, and I figured this was NOT A GOOD SIGN.