TV Review: Three in a Bed, Channel

Published on Wednesday 12 May 2010 19:13

Three in a Bed, Channel 4

REALITY television, for all its myriad sins, is often responsible for some of the most jaw-dropping comedy around. Take Three in a Bed, a derivative yet enjoyable series in which three sets of bed & breakfast owners pass judgment on each other's abodes. A blatant confluence of lighthearted reality shows such as Wife Swap and Come Dine With Me, it's little more than televised curtain-twitching, but taken on its own terms it's quite effective.

Like Wife Swap, it's largely concerned with the ways in which people from different social classes interact under pressure. But unlike Wife Swap at its worst, there is nothing particularly mean-spirited about it. A very British affair, it encourages polite but often hilariously telling combat, rather than foul-mouthed screaming matches. And it shows that rampant snobbery and cultural blinkeredness are still vital components of the great British character.

The latest episode was blessed in that it contained one of those unwittingly comical characters that this genre thrives on. Anita seemed to have escaped from a 1980s sitcom about a snooty hotelier as played by Julia McKenzie or Penelope Keith. The living definition of a cosseted Middle England snob, she ran, alongside her similarly self-satisfied husband, an immaculate mock Georgian B&B that she regarded as infinitely superior to anything her competitors could offer.

Within minutes of meeting her rivals, their B&Bs unseen, she was convinced that she'd already won. I suppose she had a point: one couple were shamelessly northern and working class, so how could they possibly beat her? "I think we might be that bit better," she trilled, clearly meaning in general rather than specifically her house.

Naturally, Anita had difficulty understanding the Yorkshire folk's perfectly decipherable accents. Later, when she visited their homely B&B, she regarded their collection of ceramic pigs with as much polite disdain as she could muster.

Thankfully, she received her comeuppance in one of the funniest scenes I've seen outside of an actual comedy. Having brought her own sausages from home – because the sausages in Yorkshire are probably made from whippets – she boasted about their superior flavour while tucking into breakfast. But in a punchline so exquisite it almost felt too good to be true, her hosts revealed that she was actually eating some ordinary Yorkshire sausages. The look on her face as it disintegrated from smug superiority to acute, backtracking embarrassment was priceless.

Annoyingly, this fiercely competitive woman ended up winning the show – competitors pay their hosts as much as they feel their stay deserved, and she earned the most – thus corroborating her unwarranted sense of impregnable entitlement. But what an astonishing character she was, the sort of person who can sail through their entire life without meeting – or even wishing to meet – anyone outwith their own social or cultural strata. Reality TV was born for her.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I occasionally enjoy this sort of thing. But if ever I feel guilty, I like to imagine that Mike Leigh – that great observer of class-based antipathy – enjoys them too, sitting at home in his slippers, chuckling away and scribbling down notes.