Are property power couple Phil and Kirstie headed for a divorce?
There’s a great telly tradition of leaping out at people. Time was, you couldn’t go three steps outside your door without Jeremy Beadle or Noel edmonds popping up at you like a Jackin-the-box — or, if you were famous enough to merit a slot on This Is Your Life, that old smoothie eamonn Andrews.
In the real world, this isn’t a good idea. spring out from behind a dustbin at your next- door neighbours and you will give them either a heart attack or a good excuse to smack you in the eye.
Nobody ever decked Noel, shouting: ‘You frightened the life out of me, you bearded twerp!’ That’s because he was on television, and another great tradition insists that we must all be on best behaviour when the cameras are around.
Phil Spencer: Secret Agent (C4) took both these traditions and wrung from them every ounce of advantage. Phil was lurking around corners and lunging from behind parked cars like Keith Chegwin after a jumbo can of energy drink, and his startled victims had to smile and slap their thighs.
The show’s producers evidently feared that their basic concept, about sprucing up unsold houses to attract buyers, wasn’t enough to guarantee good television. They were right there, but the answer wasn’t to make Phil a ‘secret estate agent’ with a licence to repaint the dining room.
What the programme lacks is teamwork. Phil is on his own, and he needs a partner, a chum, someone with a bit of chemistry. What he needs, in fact, is Kirstie Allsopp.
Phil and Kirstie seem to be having a trial separation. heaven knows what provoked it — perhaps Phil, in an unguarded moment, was a little too frank about one of Kirstie’s ghastly homemade Christmas decorations or her obsession with trawling through skips in search of three-legged chairs.
Whatever the reason, they’ve been doing a lot of ‘ solo projects’ lately. And that’s a shame, because on their long-running property show Location, Location, Location, they bring out the best in each other. he tolerates her foibles, she zests him up.
he needed some zesting, as he offered advice to a couple in hereford whose home seemed designed to induce migraines. The walls were luminous crimson and electric green, while the carpet had apparently been painted by salvador Dali under the influence of hallucinogenics.
‘I think your carpet is quite niche,’ Phil said tactfully. This would have been funny if Kirstie had been running in circles behind him, clutching her temples and frothing at the mouth. As it was, he was simply taking english understatement to an extreme.
he was equally polite in hardwicke near Gloucester, where a couple had i nstalled sliding patio doors i nstead of a f ront door, and couldn’t understand why it was putting off the punters.
Phil’s efforts to make them understand the problem were a masterclass in diplomacy. Think about how boring a programme called Masterclass In Diplomacy would be, and you’ll understand what dull fare this was.
The diplomatic arts were in short supply in Tilling, where Miranda richardson and Anna Chancellor were at each other’s throats in Mapp And Lucia (BBC1).
steve Pemberton, who plays fey Georgie Pillson, condensed this three-part adaptation from a series of six books by novelist e.F. Benson, and the show’s only fault is that so much has been crammed into each episode.
Benson’s wit i s wonderful because it breathes so slowly. he doesn’t serve up one-liners like P.G. Wodehouse — instead, readers simply smile themselves into a state of exhaustion.
Much of the TV dialogue is taken unchanged from the novels, but to quote just one line won’t cause any sides to split. here’s Lucia, planning how to mollify Georgie’s sisters: ‘I’ll have them here to lunch and give them one, no two, bottles of champagne, not to make them drunk you understand, but to make them . . . kind.’
It’s the cumulative effect of these touches that his fans treasure. This TV version looks wonderful, and the cast have captured the characters to perfection, but it’s all moving too fast. such a rare treat should have been spread over six episodes at least.