Fern Britton's new Channel 4 daytime show is a bit of a mishmash but there were some thrillingly unhinged moments
Channel Four's five o'clock weekday slot has a habit of making presenters lovely. Richard and Judy's era of loveliness ended precisely when they gave up their show. Paul O'Grady transformed from a foul-mouthed professional transvestite to a lovely old housewives' favourite as soon as he gained the slot. So, naturally, fears were high before yesterday's debut of Fern, Fern Britton's new five o'clock magazine show. Given that she is quite lovely anyway, there was a real danger that the show would transform her into some sort of terrifying loveliness supernova that would instantly wipe out all of humanity.
Britton's show has certainly been weaponised for maximum loveliness. The theme-tune is irrepressible and jaunty. The word "Fern" appears in the same font that yoghurt conglomerates use when they want their product to look organic and handmade. Fern herself freewheels around a ghastly MFI showroom of a set, complete with living room, kitchen and a sort of bizarre annexed-off real-life discussion area where Fern goes to talk to people who haven't been on the telly. To make its intentions even more painfully explicit, the first guest was Miranda Hart, who joined Fern in the living room for what turned out to be a prolonged, all-encompassing, middle-class lovely-off.
The problem is that, other than lovely, Fern doesn't really know what it wants to be. Yesterday's episode was a mishmash of semi-interviews with people such as Jimmy Doherty and an aspiring paralympian, dislocated cookery items, VTs about sheep and an exploration of a barely existent trend called Marryoke (where people pay thousands of pounds to lip-synch along to songs in their wedding video, presumably to remind future generations how excruciating and pointless it is to pay thousands of pounds to lip-synch along to songs in wedding videos). The whole thing was a confusing muddle, part The One Show, part Springwatch, part Something for the Weekend and part last week's Take a Break magazine.
One thing it isn't, however, is Come Dine with Me. And because Fern replaced Come Dine with Me in the schedules, this provoked an inevitable wave of ire on the internet. "So depressing", hammered out one Twitter user about five minutes in. "C4 you twatbags!" screeched another. "Grrrrr my life is officially over" added someone else. Cleverly, though, Fern had anticipated this ? her second guest was an old Come Dine with Me contestant notable for farting quite a lot. Genius.
But, format wobbles aside, at least everything was held together by Britton. Gastric band chippiness firmly in the past, we were treated to a vintage Fern performance, full of everything you'd expect from her ? blabbering on like your tipsy auntie, berating herself for talking too quickly, making mistakes and ploughing on regardless, letting the commercial break cue mark hang in the corner of the screen for what seemed like years while she blithely dribbled on with an audience member about the time her knickers fell off. In the world of teatime television, this is as thrillingly unhinged as things get.
Which admittedly isn't very thrilling. At one point I considered initiating a Fern drinking game, where I'd swig from a bottle of booze every time anyone said the word "lovely". Obviously I changed my mind when I realised that I'd be a dribbling, blind, topless, incontinent mess by the time The Simpsons rolled around. But you know what? I'm probably not the target market here. Fern isn't a masterpiece by any means. But Richard and Judy and The Paul O'Grady Show weren't masterpieces either, and people loved them regardless. Once people have got over their Come Dine with Me abandonment issues, they're bound to start clutching Fern to their hearts as well. And remember to tune in tonight. Apparently we're promised Chris Evans and a discussion of Fred West. Lovely.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/29/fern-britton-daytime-show
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