Rudest Home Videos (ITV1); Get A New Life (BBC2): AT the start of Rudest Home Videos, a statement warned of rude pictures and crude language. We should also have been alerted that this was as low as a programme can go. If you thought that You've Been Framed was dire, watch this and have your mind changed.
What comedienne Jo Brand, who usually seems such a sensible woman, is doing hosting this show is a mystery. As if home videos of people peeing in public, sitting on the toilet and scraping wallpaper in the nude wasn't bad enough, we have to put up with Brand cracking jokes about Jim Davidson and Paul Daniels ("it's not big, it's not clever, it's Paul Daniels").
The audience in the studio laugh themselves silly, presumably because someone is paying them to do so or laughing gas is being fed into the air conditioning system. There can be no other logical reason because a lot of the clips show people in potentially dangerous, perhaps fatal, situations as they set themselves on fire, are dropped on their head and electrocute themselves. It can only be a matter of time before we are treated to Jo Brand's Goriest Home Executions.
Relocation series like Get A New Life also depend on viewers being spectators of other people's misery. If the family's move to a new home and new life goes smoothly, the result is very boring indeed.
This week, the Bensons from Hertfordshire - Ken, Michelle and five-year-old George - packed their bags and headed for Italy to open a bed and breakfast and turn their interests of skiing and cycling into a tourist business. The idea was to have more of an outdoor existence, there not being much call for skiing or cycling in Hertfordshire, apparently.
The BBC programme provides two experts, Mel and Scott, to help them get started and funds their first month abroad. They were surprised about the Bensons' realistic expectations. Normally, those seeking a new life reckon on walking into highly-paid jobs and luxury homes with the minimum of effort.
The couple's desire for an outdoor life seemed all too likely as they had problems finding accommodation. Getting jobs proved equally difficult, mainly because of the language barrier. They only began learning Italian three weeks before leaving this country and headed for a part of Italy where very few people speak English.
Ken's idea of organising cycling holidays also took a dent when he learnt that a hotel that specialised in welcoming cyclists had only booked in five the previous year.
And to cap it all, the weather was as rainy, if not rainier, than over here. It could have been worse - they might have had to watch Rudest Home Videos on the telly.
Published: ??/??/2004
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