Naked nastiness that’ll make you crave the sweetness of Bake Off
MNot so on Interior Design Masters (BBC2), the Beeb’s new knockout format where contestants do battle with wallpaper samples and mood boards.
The insults were flying before the second round task had even begun. Nine designers were sent to revamp a Victorian hotel in Bournemouth. They took one look and dubbed the place Fawlty Towers.
‘The hotel is stuck in a time warp, there’s a lot of bad taste going on,’ sniped a decorator. Then they looked at each other’s designs and the claws came out in earnest.
Frank, at 22 the youngest contestant on the show, goggled at the neon colours that solicitor Terian planned to use in her hotel room and announced it looked like a packet of highlighter pens. Moments later, in private, he confided to the camera that Terian was ‘not that strong at design’.
we haven’t seen such naked nastiness between players since The weakest Link ended. if anne Robinson checked in, she’d be shocked at all the put-downs.
Frank hadn’t finished with Terian. Gazing at her orange ceiling, he
HARE-BRAIN OF THE NIGHT:
Everyone’s panicking about a missing teen in Deep Water (ITV), where dog sitter Anna Friel is so klutzy she can’t even find her car keys in her own jacket. Am I the only viewer afraid she’s not a fit person to be looking after pets? spat: ‘it’s like an Easyjet crew room, i absolutely hate it.’ Yes, all right dear, we’ve got the message.
Most of the show consists of DiY. This is great, if you enjoy watching paint dry. But the real pay-off came as the contestants inspected each other’s efforts. The fur really flew then.
The comments were merely harsh at first: ‘i wouldn’t feel very relaxed in this room,’ ‘a bit dark for me,’ and, ‘Did they just wrap fabric round this cushion?’
But soon things turned vicious: ‘For me, i would feel depressed in here,’ and ‘oh dear, i don’t like this sort of thing. it’s just tack.’
Then came the succinct, ‘amateur!’ and the conclusive, ‘Kill me now!’
Even guest judge Jade Jagger used the sharp edge of her tongue. Surveying Terian’s luminous decor, she remarked, ‘This is something i quite liked . . . in the late Nineties.’
Perhaps the show would have proved popular, too, years ago when rudeness was all the rage. These days, we like our reality contests to have soft edges and lots of group hugs. Roll on Bake off.
another Nineties throwback, surrealist comedian Vic Reeves, was showing off what he remembered from his art college days on Bauhaus Rules (BBC4).
Under his real name, Jim Moir — the one he used as a regular on Coronation Street — he joined six graduates from Central St Martins in London to learn more about the minimalist German movement that was almost a religious cult.
Bauhaus students in the Twenties adhered to a strict vegetarian diet and performed weird salutes every morning, under the instruction of a fanatical racist teacher.
Thank heavens they only wanted to conquer the art world. That sort of nonsense could have very unpleasant outcomes in weimar Germany.
Jim tried to take it all seriously, though he couldn’t resist striking daft poses, such as sticking one leg up on the windowsill to show off his socks. The students, barely out of their teens, gave him wary looks. Vic Reeves’ Big Night out probably seems as ancient to them as the music hall.
But their lessons proved an effective way to show us what the Bauhaus movement was about — much more digestible than a lecture from an art historian. and it keeps Jim busy, now his partner Bob Mortimer has Gone Fishing. iaow! amateur decorators are a lot cattier, it turns out, than part-time bakers. all is sweetness and love in the Bake off tent as we prepare for the delicious cookery contest to return next week.