If you think Coco Chanel is French for hot chocolate, give this a miss
For roughly half the married population, lockdown brought one great boon. The Saturday ritual of clothes shopping was cancelled. Britain’s shop shutdown proved what most men have been telling their wives for years: yes, love, you do have enough dresses already. And shoes.
rylan Clark-Neal doesn’t agree. As the High Street prepares to re- open, his latest series You Are What You Wear (BBC1) brings clothes-rails into Britain’s living rooms and challenges stylists to give makeovers to four selfconscious members of the public.
Honestly, I found it as dull as an hour spent outside a changing room in John Lewis’s, but this show has a target audience and I’m not it. If you’re the type of bloke who thinks of football, not fashion, when you hear the word ‘Milan’, or vaguely supposes that Coco Chanel is probably French for ‘ hot chocolate’, you already know to avoid this show.
But if you’re a fashion fan who sees a pair of pointy leatherette high heels and gasps, as one fashionista did, ‘oMG, white stilettos, my dreams have come true,’ then this might have been a blissful slice of lightweight telly.
Four candidates were ushered into a room with a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and rylan asked them in a voice aching with sympathy: ‘Tell me what you see.’
What followed was a blizzard of cuts and montages, interspersed with squeals of excitement from the stylists. Weightlifter Manny was encouraged to ditch his trainers for a pair of suede loafers with tassels and no socks. He seemed thrilled about it. I wonder what they’ll say at the gym?
Toilet roll salesman Chris was worried that the absence in his wardrobe of anything but black shirts and jeans made him look like an undertaker — and he was due to get married.
That ‘man in black’ look always worked for Johnny Cash, but Chris was duly transformed and went home in a tweed suit, like an extra from Jeeves And Wooster.
rylan threw quips over his shoulder while the theme tune from Are You Being Served? trilled — and I realised who the ideal audience was. John Inman, who played menswear assistant Mr Humphries, would have adored this show. I’m free!
It’s not just the ‘ non- essential shops’ that are making a comeback. So are suburban vampires, with the second series of cult comedy What We Do In The Shadows (BBC2).
Set on the outskirts of New York and starring Matt Berry and Natasia Demetriou as married bloodsuckers Laszlo and Nadja (a sort of undead Terry and June) this sitcom is based on a critically acclaimed independent movie from New Zealand.
After the excellent first season of the TV version, I sought out the film — and as so often, realised it wasn’t a patch on the telly remake. Half- developed jokes on the big screen have been fleshed out, expanded and speeded up in the sitcom.
only a cinema snob could deny that this idea becomes much funnier on television.
Kayvan Novak plays the couple’s housemate, Nandor the relentless, a genocidal maniac with a sentimental streak. His human servant, Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) is a descendant of vampire hunter Van Helsing, who finds himself increasingly drawn to the wooden stakes and crucifixes.
I laughed out loud at Topher the zombie, who high- fived people till his arms fell off, and at Benedict Wong as a necromancer who recited his spells in scat jazz.
Next week, the vampires go to see the Superb owl . . . and I’ll leave you to work that one out.