Get real... Stephanie Beacham, and that Business Class dude OFF AIR
WELL, I got that one wrong. Last week’s column confidently predicted that we were about to hear Janette, aka one half of Eighties children’s TV favourites The Krankies, churning out her FanDabi-Dozi catchphrase every chance she got.
But neither she nor husband Ian, the other half of the comedy duo, uttered it once during the opening instalment of The Real Marigold Hotel’s third series. I’d imagine there is an entire generation of middleaged viewers who were pretty disappointed at that.
Even as we speak, BBC lawyers are presumably scanning the relevant documents to see if there are grounds for breach of contract. The only saving grace is that I didn’t pay a visit to my local Paddy Power in advance.
The Real Marigold Hotel is a curious confection. It is the Midsomer Murders of reality TV, a genteel version of something that could be an awful lot more unpleasant.
Anybody who appears on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, for instance, might find themselves crawling half-naked through a pit of venomous snakes. The worst that’s likely to happen here is someone getting a dose of the old Delhi belly.
This year’s line-up is impressive insofar as these things go. As well as the aforementioned Krankies, there are also the likes of Selina Scott, Syd Little and former Grand National winner Bob Champion seeing if a life of retirement in India would suit them.
I wouldn’t be staking next month’s mortgage money on Bob lasting the course, given that he had never even tried Indian food before landing in Udaipur. He’s clearly never had a fit of the munchies after a night on the beer. I suppose it must be the typical discipline of the jockey.
My non-favourite contestant so far is Stephanie Beacham, who was previously best known as the fourth most attractive woman in the ludicrous Eighties soap Dynasty. The lovely Steph spoke about the ‘success’ she has enjoyed and, indeed, the ‘hard work, hard work, hard work’ that went into achieving it. Which, of course, made her
sound like very hard work indeed.
Meanwhile, The World’s Most Luxurious Airline had an Asian theme too. It was an hour-long documentary about Singapore Airlines’ attempt to raise firstclass travel to a whole new level.
Proceedings began with a smuglooking bloke heading for his flight. ‘I couldn’t do it in economy,’ he said. ‘I think it would probably kill me.’
Even if I wasn’t facing into the potential nightmare of travelling by Ryanair in a few weeks’ time, I still think I’d probably kill him.
The most striking figure in the programme was Alex Macheras, a so-called ‘aviation analyst’.
Alex, who is only 20 and has the hairdo of an Eighties footballer, still lives with his mother in Essex. But he has 70,000 followers on social media and, accordingly, we are told that ‘his opinions can have a lasting impact on an airline’s reputation’.
Alex admits he travels so much that he can probably give the cabin crew pre-flight announcements in ten different languages.
But the telling moment came when he did a walkabout on Singapore Airlines’ new executive suites. Practically everything, he remarked, was either ‘amazing’ or ‘incredible’.
But he was never going to say anything other than that, was he? They never do.
None of this actually meant anything to the people watching at home – and was in many respects an insult to them.
Particularly given that they’re never going to be turning left on one of those planes anyway.