To Live And Die In Brentwood
I wonder if it's time for me to relaunch this blog as an offshoot of TOWIE. I do live in Brentwood after all. 'Essex is like LA', says Amy Childs in her new programme It's All About Amy. Shots of Nando's in Brentwood High Street don't quite bear this out, but the trick - and it is surely one that Amy is mastering - is not to have any real idea where you are at all.
'I'm the most normalest person probably ever', Amy declares. If this is true - and 'celebrity' is indeed fast becoming the norm - it makes me wonder who wants to watch a series of hour-long programmes about a normal person not even bothering to pretend to be anything else. Perhaps this explains why the series is already showing signs of shifting its focus onto the incontinence problems of Amy's pet pug, 'Prince Childs'.
But the main thing is that you get to see quite a bit of Brentwood, where Amy has just opened a salon. Because it just isn't enough for me to see it in real life every day, I have to see it on TV as well. Although at one point a shop that is clearly in Crown Street is described as being in the High Street, which has me sputtering in rage. TV shows should be followed by errata, I think, like books used to be. Amy should be made to read out the mistakes after every episode - which could conceivably take longer than the programme itself.
People might wonder whether I watch programmes like TOWIE 'ironically'. I tried for a while, but it's impossible. TOWIE exists in a place that is beyond irony. And that place is Brentwood, where boutiques are springing up as fast as you can paint a wall pink and hang up a chandelier, and tourists from all over the UK pack the Premier Inn, each of them no doubt hoping that one day they too can become 'the most normalest person probably ever'.
However I do fear that Amy's new programme is doomed, simply because, unlike TOWIE, it doesn't have a user-friendly acronym. Ask someone if they have seen IAAA and they'll think you're having a stroke.
'I'm the most normalest person probably ever', Amy declares. If this is true - and 'celebrity' is indeed fast becoming the norm - it makes me wonder who wants to watch a series of hour-long programmes about a normal person not even bothering to pretend to be anything else. Perhaps this explains why the series is already showing signs of shifting its focus onto the incontinence problems of Amy's pet pug, 'Prince Childs'.
But the main thing is that you get to see quite a bit of Brentwood, where Amy has just opened a salon. Because it just isn't enough for me to see it in real life every day, I have to see it on TV as well. Although at one point a shop that is clearly in Crown Street is described as being in the High Street, which has me sputtering in rage. TV shows should be followed by errata, I think, like books used to be. Amy should be made to read out the mistakes after every episode - which could conceivably take longer than the programme itself.
People might wonder whether I watch programmes like TOWIE 'ironically'. I tried for a while, but it's impossible. TOWIE exists in a place that is beyond irony. And that place is Brentwood, where boutiques are springing up as fast as you can paint a wall pink and hang up a chandelier, and tourists from all over the UK pack the Premier Inn, each of them no doubt hoping that one day they too can become 'the most normalest person probably ever'.
However I do fear that Amy's new programme is doomed, simply because, unlike TOWIE, it doesn't have a user-friendly acronym. Ask someone if they have seen IAAA and they'll think you're having a stroke.
posted by martin at 10:35 AM
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