Frank hopes to clean up
REMIND me to make more fuss of THE BIDDING ROOM (BBC1, 3.45pm). It’s a show I feel I’ve neglected somewhat. I know it generally goes out in the afternoon, and therefore technically falls outside the “tonight’s TV” remit, but you don’t really mind me throwing off the chains of convention every now and again, do you? Good.
Besides, there’s nothing to stop you watching it in the evening instead if you’d rather.You just have to do the BBC iPlayer thing. I hear that’s all the rage.
Among today’s sellers is a chap called Frank, who’s turned up with his Hoover.
Frank is hoping to earn himself a few quid, not by doing a couple of hours’ cleaning, although I guess that’s an option, but by selling this contraption to one of the show’s resident dealers.
It’s not quite the latest model, but it used to be. Back in the Fifties, that is. “It’s still in working order,” he tells us, although he admits it’s been sitting in his basement for the last 10 years, gathering dust (ironically).
Who knows what the dealers are going to make of this thing, but host Nigel Havers is rather taken with it himself.
“I know this is going to date me,” he says, “but I did the hoovering with this very Hoover.”
Also on the show we meet Geoff, who’s hoping to sell a set of old baking scales, and Carolyn, who has a 60-year-old whippet she’d like around £100 for – the RSPCA being one of the charities for whom she’s looking to raise funds.
The whippet looks in fine fettle, I have to say. It helps that he’s made of brass.
The Bidding Room isn’t quite as drenched in emotion, I’ll grant you, as its sister show,The Repair Shop. There are personal stories behind many of the items brought in, but no one’s so attached to their stuff that they’re not prepared to flog it if the price is right.
Personally, though, I’m fine with it being less weepy.The Repair Shop is lovely but it doesn’t half take it out of you.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to sit through a programme that makes me cry. It’s just that I’m happier to sit through one that doesn’t. Elsewhere, a bit later (OK, quite a lot later), Lord Sugar would like the candidates on THE APPRENTICE (9pm, BBC1) to create and market a vegan alternative to cheese.
This is a noble endeavour, I’m sure, and will almost certainly be enough to stop the polar ice caps melting. But when it comes to cheese “alternatives” I’m afraid I’m not convinced.
The Apprentice bunch may do their best tonight, but they’ll never match the efforts of a herd of dairy cows.
Mind you, I’ve said that about them each week since the series began.