Made In Chelsea - A Husk Of A Programme

First things first. I loved (love, present tense) the Hills. And the City./ Here’s why. Glamour. Gossip. Relationships/.

The girls are nice, individually. You grow to love them. So can this be recreated in London, with made in Chelsea? After watching, a half hour I won't get back, I can only think- No.

I know this is late in the running when it first aired literally months ago. In fact, I’m only watching this because blogging with no noise is like running without earphones – a bit soul entering.

So here it is.The first problem is the characters. Whitney. Lauren and Audrina from The LA based 'The Hills' are in no way threatened, or shouldn’t be by these girls. Of course, they are pretty. The episode I saw ensured this was stated, both by the characters, as well as with casual voyeurism with the 3 minutes at the shoot of one of them dancing to S and M by Rhianna in leather undercrackers.

The joy of the Hills as a programme is, as well as the shots, the content and the characters, are the soaring shots of the Hollywood sign. In The City this is the equally thrilling New York landscape. Soaring over canary wharf just reminds me of The Apprentice. Someone should also tell the camera man to lay off the ‘quick time’ shots of the taxi lights, which smacks of the Spice Girl’s 2 Become 1 video from the 1990’s.

You can’t just truss up Chelsea and presume we want to be these people who live there. The joy of LA is it's novelty. The sun! The fashion. I could live within walking distance of Chelsea right now. It’s not aspirational. It’s rub your nose in it snobbery.

It errs on the wrong side of appealing to the audience, and I think it jars the whole show. Take away them showing off, horsing about with their dates, tennis and nonsense, and we might get a god programme. We could relate. Or aspire. Or anything. Yet, I come away with as much compassion for them as I have for a sock puppet. Husks of humans trussed up in pearls and leather, these are like droids without any comedy value.

The next problem are the characters themselves. I get it, your plumy. I actually have a bit of a plumy voice myself. What I don’t do is that awful American-Brit nasal crossover. This leaves men, women and vacuous actresses such as this saying over and over with an inflection

“Yarrr.”

“I had an AMAYzing time.”

“It’s seriously…boRRing”

“Pipe down.”

“We should have a Charrrt.”

Oh yes. Chats. Or Charrrts. There are plenty of those. Which leads to problem 3. The story lines.

I grasped that “errrrr””to be honerrrst” and “Yearrrr.” That Gabriella, is the one who sings. She got dumped by the one with long hair that looks like Mowgli, because he likes men AND women.

I also think that he looks like J’aime on Summer Heights High.

This guy is called Ollie Locke. The blurb tells me he is ‘a man on the door worth knowing’. I would suggest that’s a door I wouldn't want to enter.

Some man doesn’t like his girlfriend dancing in nightclubs, and 2 people go on a date.

Oh, they play some tennis too and discuss women like prime

slices of beef.

I have to mention the pin in the cushion of hatred, Francis Boulle. Tatler say he is an eligible young chap. I can only imagine eligible for a mince grinder.

Taking Errrr and yarrrr to a new level, this Francis has more plums in his mouth than Jodie Marsh ever has.

“I like the geek chic look you’v egot on” one girl mistakenly compliments him.

"Well, can’t say that’s what I planned." he replies, dialogue and flirtation as thrilling as a freshly painted wall.

Come on man. Geek chic spectacles? A sweater vest? And I know you can’t help the hair. But that is a 'look'.

And didn’t your mother ever tell you how to accept a compliment?

So with half an hour of my life gone I can only assume that this programme will soon be gone, else I have the whole of the UK pinned wrong. With storylines based around dates, kisses and the drearily dull, clean and safely compartmentalised side of London, that we aspire to escaping, these people have none of the charm and brash ‘new money’ laughs we get from The Hill's Spencer Pratt. None of the All American Barbie looks of his wife, Heidi Montag. None of the California windy-road-in-a-soft top intro or the fashion backstage scenes with anorexic gazelle-like models to gawk at that The Hills have.

In short, it doesn't touch it.

All we have with Made in Chelsea are club dancers, tennis and wet weather.

A miserable attempt at the glitz and glamour- this only reconfirms that TV is in a state until we make our own national niche instead of hanging on the coat tails of America’s MTV methods.

What do you think of Made In Chelsea?

Elaine