TV review: Naked | Trinny and Susannah Meet Their Match

Published on Tuesday 27 January 2009 19:04

Naked, BBC3 Trinny and Susannah Meet Their Match, STV

USING a complex series of mathematical theorems, I have worked out that the purpose and attitude of precisely 35 per cent of British television can be summed up thus: "Gosh, look at her, isn't she fat? And her with the fake boobs, what does she look like? Ha! This woman appears to be moulded entirely from corned beef! Come on everyone, laugh and point, laugh and point!" Repeat ad infinitum.

In Naked, an "uncompromising new series" uncompromisingly ripped off from every other body-issue programme ever made, hectoring psychologist Emma Kenny and camp image consultant Jonathan Phang (who makes a tidy living out of appearing in tripe like this), encapsulated this dispiriting attitude by forcing five neurotic beauticians through some sort of half-baked "confidence building course" in an effort to make them love themselves.

It was like How To Look Good Naked meets The Krypton Factor, an idea that should have been blasted into space as soon as it was mooted. But then this is BBC3, a place where terrible ideas are given their own parking space.

Depressingly trite and superficial, Naked was a transparently cynical retread of a format so knackered it's a wonder it can get out of bed in the morning.

The participants – as is almost always the case – were a bunch of self-obsessed, attention-seeking whingers, none of whom I gave a tinker's cuss about, while the hosts continually spouted words of bland encouragement that could have been torn from any number of drivelling self-help books.

I almost literally couldn't bear to watch at times. The overriding aura of huggy, weepy, love-your-inner-self claptrap was excruciating in the extreme. The scene in which Ruth, a woman who considered herself fat and ugly, was forcibly patronised by a room full of awkwardly complimentary rugby players was one of the most baffling, cringeworthy things I've seen in a long time.

But this rigorous form of deeply scientific therapy obviously paid off as, in the end, Ruth and her fellow beauticians were confident enough to pose naked for some sketch artists. If 21st-century television has taught us nothing else, it's that true self-worth can only be realised via demeaning displays of public nudity.

There's little doubt that the people who participate in these programmes are being exploited, but then again they've got no-one to blame but themselves. Nobody, as far as I know, forced them at gun point to appear on television to shout "I am fat!" at a disinterested world.

Charmless lifestyle gurus Trinny and Susannah are the undisputed queens of this tawdry genre, although that's hardly something to boast about. But is their star on the wane? Pointless vehicles such as Trinny and Susannah Meet Their Match certainly suggest that there's no life left in their tiresome schtick.

Now that they've halted their unconvincing attempts to soften their image by "doing a Gok" and pretending to care about the neuroses of ordinary women (neuroses that they probably helped foster in the first place with their sneering programmes), their latest effort finds them back in their comfort zone, pointing and laughing at the common proles.

For once, however, I was actually on Trinny and Susannah's side, as the middle-aged women they encountered in this episode dressed like ageing prostitutes. They looked horrendous. But that doesn't excuse the fact that the dull, bored Trinny and Susannah have long outstayed their welcome. So please, both of you, go away, as far from mine eyes, ears and unflattering trousers as possible.