Light Relief
What Not To Cry Over
Today is Comic Relief day… the TV marathon usually comes over as a perfect case study in truly awful television but it becomes oddly watchable the more drink you consume. However, the clips of the less fortunate from home and abroad that are juxtaposed with the cringeworthy celeb scenes throughout the event, demonstrate the power of the medium perfectly and, on a personal level, almost all of these have the same emotional impact of Michael Buerk’s Ethiopian reports all those years ago.
I was sitting down last night, channel hopping around and I saw a trailer for Comic Relief Does The Apprentice. I quite like the “Comic Relief Does…” themed shows. For example, Fame Acedemy has been thoroughly entertaining throughout its current run (and if TPT doesn’t win it tonight it will be a travesty). However, my expectations were suitably low for Alan Sugar and his apprentices, as I thought the show’s format didn’t lend itself to the one-off nature of the challenge. Ten celebrities and one gets fired, rather than anyone actually winning, it just seemed wierd.
How wrong I was. It was one of the funniest hours of TV I’ve seen in a long time. The challenge seemed quite simple: boys against girls, set up a fun fair, team with the most money wins. As soon as Alistair Campbell and Piers Morgan sat down to negotiate who got which fairground rides, I was hooked. It had everything, personality clashes, kidnapping (!), celeb walkouts, the most extravagent woman I’ve ever seen (“Would you buy a ticket to come to our fun fair?” asked Trinny, “Will £150,000 be okay?” she replied. Poor Maureen Lipman, (along with almost every viewer, I’m sure) couldn’t quite believe what she’d just heard. It also contained one of the greatest comedy put-downs I’ve ever heard, from the unlikeliest person on the show, Cheryl Cole (nee Tweedy). Trinny and Maureen were having a row on the phone over the guest list that Trinny was desperate to get written into a spreadsheet. Maureen hung up. Cheryl turned to Trinny, turned to look at the camera, looked back at Trinny and after a perfectly timed pause, asked “‘ave you gotta touch of that OCD, d’ya think?” … and Poor Trinny had just been in a fist-fight with Piers Morgan! Brilliant, and warrants a charitable donation from me at any rate.
Tags: Alan-Sugar, Alistair-Campbell, Apprentice, Cheryl-Cole, Comic-Relief, Maureen-Lipman, Piers-Morgan, Reality, Tara-Palmer-Tomkinson, Trinny-Woodall
