Richard Madeley as an Italian heart-throb? Pull the other one
RICCARDo di Maddeli, the effortlessly smooth Italian television star, allowed a light smile to play on his classic Roman features as he ordered a Bellini.
the virile Latin growl in his voice marked him as a true son of the world’s most beautiful city . . . Venice.
At least, that’s how Richard Madeley hoped the cameras would see him on How To Holiday Better (BBC1), as he revealed his advice for avoiding the tourist traps.
Italian phrases rolled off his tongue with an ease that comes from endless hours of language lessons on cassette. ‘Sannn Marrrcooo,’ he purred. ‘gelll-arrrto!’
his wardrobe was all Mafioso menace, a camel overcoat with mismatched black leather gloves. But his poses didn’t capture the gangster threat: the buttons had apparently come off, and he clutched the coat shut with both hands at trouser height.
he looked like a boy desperate for the bathroom.
Richard and his wife Judy Finnegan have been visiting Venice for 20 years, he revealed.
She hadn’t bothered joining him this time, perhaps because she’s fed up with his money-saving tips: to cut the cost of a romantic gondola ride, he suggested, why not invite two other couples to join you and split the fare?
But no penny-pinching urges were going to prevent him from ordering his favourite cocktail, the peach-and-Prosecco Bellini, at harry’s Bar. ‘It’s simple, it’s elegant, it’s understated but it’s ineffably classy,’ Riccardo promised, before he ruined it all by giving the camera a big, cheesy wink.
he couldn’t be blamed for the peculiar timing of this show, right in the middle of the holiday season. Ade Adepitan warned us, for instance, to book our train tickets at least three months in advance. It might have been more helpful if he hadn’t waited till July to tell us.
Ade planned an itinerary through greece for a couple of adventurous lady travellers, Lynn and Stella. For some reason he treated them like children: ‘First of all, I want you to catch a train to a town called Kalabaka . . . can you do that?’
Lynn and Stella exchanged a wary, puzzled look. ‘ Er, yeah,’ they replied.
Cherry healey helped a family cut the cost of their annual break by sending them self-catering instead of on their usual all-inclusive hotel jaunt. Nothing epitomises holiday relaxation like an hour searching for something edible in a Spanish supermarket, after all.
Still, no one can complain that this drained the Beeb’ s resources. the holiday-makers befriended by Cherry and Ade were spending their own funds. Now that is a budget break.
At least their tans were real. the celebrity- obsessed attention-seekers on OMG! Make Me A Famous Face (C5) just coated their skin in dye and varnish.
one fragile 22-year- old called Liam, desperate to look like his idol Katie Price, rubbed seven layers of fake tan on his body each week, before scouring it off with pan scrubbers and bleach. An ex- glamour model and Kardashian lookalike named Chloe, 31, remodelled her face with injections of silicone filler in her lips, jaw and even her nose.
then the show invited us to pity her: ‘ I’m never satisfied, I always remember the negative comments,’ she sighed, while a sad piano played.
then it was off to the clinic for another round of narcissism and plastic surgery.
this was viciously exploitative television, and it didn’t pretend to be anything else.
these people have a masochistic ache to be mocked and paraded, and the show obliges. More fool them, and more fool anyone who watches.