Has reality TV finally lost the plot?
As star Scarlett & family move into a British semi rebuilt in Namibia, we ask..
WHEN David Attenborough met the lost Biami tribe of Papua New Guinea in 1967, he relied on a warm smile and a few simple hand gestures to discover what they had in common.
The remarkable, unscripted encounter became a groundbreaking television moment – an example of real TV at its finest.
Half a century later, Channel 4 bosses decided to launch their own anthropological experiment with a tribe of nomadic cattle-herders.
And who did they send to a remote Namibian village to meet the Himba tribe?
Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt – with her hair straighteners and a supply of frozen ready meals – along with the rest of her famousfor-being-on-TV family in an exact replica of their house in County Durham.
Because what could be more “real” than building a stone clad-semi on a plot of African scrubland, fitting it out with thousands of mod cons and inviting your semi-nomadic neighbours round to ooh and ah over microwaves, iPhones, and biscuit tins? The four-part
series, called The British Tribe Next Door, was unveiled by excited C4 execs at the Edinburgh TV festival yesterday.
They clearly think they have a huge hit on their hands – comparing it to the 2007 series Meet The Natives, when five South Pacific tribesmen came to the UK.
They say the Himba “welcomed the
opportunity to assess and judge at first hand the sedentary, hi-tech and consumerist Western lifestyles they have heard about but never seen close up.” What a load of old codswallop. This “reverse anthropological exchange” sounds like gimmicky, exploitative reality TV of the worst possible kind.
Two different cultures learning from each other – or privileged white folk showing the poor, black natives how they could be living? Really?
The Moffatts spent four weeks living in their house alongside the Himba. I’m A Celebrity star Scarlett’s dad, Mark, learned to be a cattle herder, and granny Christine bonded with the tribal elders by introducing them to knitting. Alf Lawrie, head of factual entertainment at Channel 4, said: “For the first time in human history, British suburbia and Himba tribal life will co-exist sideby-side. This series contrasts two worlds on a spectacular scale – but at its heart, it is about the extraordinary relationships it creates.” And, of course, it’s about viewing figures.