Like Trinny and Susannah with needles

10 Years Younger (C4)

IT WAS all very well prison officer Bernie Sharp saying she felt young inside but, as we all know, looks are what count in today's society.

When 100 people in the street were asked how old she looked, their guesses ranged from 35 to 66. That averaged out as 51 - six years older than her real age.

Luckily for Bernie, C4 has a new makeover programme that takes the game one step further. Not quite as far as the US series that gives participants cosmetic surgery, although further than British series have done in the past.

Never mind giving her a new hairstyle and full body massage, let's fill her face full of botox and get the dentist to whiten her teeth. The "full wardrobe transplant" was almost an afterthought, like healthy food and exercise.

Encouraging people to adopt artificial means of improving their looks leaves the series open to accusations of irresponsibility or advertising botox and cosmetic dentistry.

Presenter and stylist Nicky Hambleton-Jones could do with a personality makeover to make her more sympathetic. She takes it all very seriously. Not much chance of her acquiring laughter lines.

She had ten days to make single mum Bernie look ten years younger and combat the effects of smoking and a diet of junk food and fry-ups.

Sensitive viewers were advised to look away as Bernie became a human pin cushion as she was given 16 botox injections in the face and lips. She was assured that her "trout pout" would subside (try telling that to Leslie Ash).

Afterwards, she could see a difference in her smoother skin after the facial filling. The bad news is that she'll need to spend £300 on injections every six months to maintain the look.

This part of the transformation didn't bother Bernie. She didn't mind needles, but having her Denis Healy eyebrows plucked was a different matter altogether. She was terrified, wincing as the tweezers tugged hair after hair from above her eyes.

Seeing the result, Nicky - a touch sadistically, I thought - suggested that the eyebrows needed even more thinning out. The idea was resisted, as she was told firmly by the plucker: "I think you should stick to clothes and I'll stick to eyebrows".

Nicky was equally candid when it came to fashion, telling Bernie she didn't have the legs for short skirts. Presumably, as there's no miracle injection to make people thin, nothing could be done about that.

Having spent £7,500 on the makeover, Bernie was taken out into the street again and scrutinised by the public. This time her average age came out as 42.

Nicky declared this a good result as it was nine years younger than the original figure. But it was only three years younger than Bernie's real age, so was the pain and the expense really worth it?

KATE WINSLET

'I wouldn't rewrite the past'

- See 7Days today in The Northern Echo