ITV GOES POSH:Mansfield Park

For those who don't read, here's the plot of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Fanny Price, a poor girl with rich relations, is sent to live with the rich relations at Mansfield Park. This happened a lot in Olden Days. The relations never fail to remind her of her place, except the boring middle son, who is nice to her, and gets her to read good books (always important in Jane Austen World). Along come the Crawfords, a slightly twisted brother and sister seduction team who set about seducing Elder Daughter Maria (played by Teen Slater) away from her rich-but-stupid husband; and Boring Middle Son away from the priesthood. Henry Crawford also tries it on with Fanny, but is rebuffed and runs off with Married Maria instead. This brings SHAME upon the lofty Bertram household and everybody realises that Fanny is actually quite a good egg, and more deserving of Mansfield Park than anybody else. Middle Son bins off the Crawford hussy and marries his cousin instead.

So it's a kind of Cinderella story, with added commentary on the patriarchy, sexual politics, the morality of building one's family fortune on human misery, and loads of other stuff about families, rivalry etc. Fab book.

But this is ITV1, and all ITV1 wants is nice frocks, pretty houses and men in britches jumping in ponds. Thankfully the pond-jumping is avoided, but there are plenty of nice frocks about. One of the prettier touches is the change in Billie/Fanny's clothing as she rises in status. She starts off wearing something in brown cotton, and ends up strolling through the lavender hedges in a gorgeous pale blue satin confection that looks good enough to eat.

Somebody has also decided that, as a poor relation, Billie would not have the usual Regency rules of ladylike decorum forced upon her, and therefore she has to express her free-spiritedness by tearing about the house like her life depends upon it. There she goes up the stairs...and there she goes down the stairs. Good thing it's a big house. Billie isn't as insufferable a little prig as the other Fannies I have seen, but I did wish she'd stop running like a hoyden and do something with her hair. The action was mostly shot on hand held cameras that made you feel slightly seasick, but I think it was to make the point that the bulk of MP is about YOUNG PEOPLE HAVING FUN! and not nice frocks and britches. Look! there goes Billie again...she must have forgotten her hat...

Billie's arch nemesis in MP is not a giant Slitheen or even a Dalek, it's her Aunt Norris, played with twitching evil relish by Maggie O'Neill (aka Her from Shameless). Auntie blames Billie for everything, and is eventually banished for blaming Billie for not marrying Henry Crawford and driving him into Teen's married arms.

Edmund the boring middle son was suitably po-faced and intense. Actually, I thought Roistering Eldest Brother Tom was more interesting, and so did Billie by the look of things. Teen didn't have much to do other than look beautiful (check) and rather calculating (check check). Nothing was made of Fanny Price's bluestocking tendencies (except for a timid question over dinner about slavery), and she wasn't banished to Portsmouth to experience Middle Class Hell after refusing the advances of Henry Crawford.

ITV1 crammed one of Austen's denser novels into two hours by concentrating almost wholly on the central romance, which kind of works if you haven't read the book. It galloped through the more meditative aspects - and believe me, there are a few. I kept wishing they'd slow down a bit, and give Billie a hairbrush.

NEXT WEEK: Northanger Abbey, starring That Hussy Emma Grundy!

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE

Celebrities and Apprentice in the same show? How my cup runneth over! For a one off special, a male team and a female team compete to raise money for Comic Relief via the medium of a funfair. Siralan and his minionators are all present and correct (though Nick and Margaret don’t really get to do much. Boo – hopefully they will get to say something in the boardroom on Friday) and the teams are as follows:

BLERKS:
Alistair Campbell – Tony Blair’s rabid attack hound
Piers Morgan – unctuous and hateful ex editor of the Mirror
Ross Kemp – Ger-want Mitchell, also well known for being beaten up by his missis after being caught shagging another bloke ALLEGEDLY
Danny Baker – Ex Chris Evans sidekick and local radio presenter.
Rupert Everret – moose faced fillum star

Wow, Campbell and Morgan on the same team??? I assume that Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler and Dr Crippen had other engagements.

LAYDEES:
Trinny – the thin one out of Trinny and Susannah
Cheryl Tweedy-Cole – Girls Aloud foxtress, Footballers Wife and pugilist.
Maureen Lipman – everyone knows who she is, though I’m not really sure how she first became famous
Jo Brand – the comedienne. I once saw her in real life, examining a GIANT CHAIR on Hampstead Heath with her kids.
Karen Bradey – the chair of Brumingham FC

Siralan banters with Karen re football, mocks Trinny’s failed dotcom venture and teases Cheryl re her “singing a bit in manufactured band” skillz. There is then hours of blokey banter with Danny Baker about being cockernees or something, which makes me throw up a little bit inside my mouth.

To begin with the teams have to negotiate which of a limited selection of rides they want for their sections of the fair. The women go all out for dodgems and then have to accept a load of crap (helter skelter, spinning vomitator machine) while the men get thinGs like the coconut shy and hoopla which they think will be more suitable for celebrity chums to play on.

It turns out that Alistair Campbell and Piers Morgan are actually quite nice and good natured. Ha ha, only joking! They are just as hateful as you would imagine and instantly take over, bossing Rupert around and ordering that he phone up Madonna and Julia Roberts so they can get involved somehow. Rupert whimpers that he doesn’t know them that well and looks more and more like a bemused camel. In the end he says he doesn’t like being in front of cameras without a script and doesn’t appear again the next morning. The blokes recruit Fit Tim from Apprentice 1 instead. Sadly he does not take his shirt off at any point.

Ger-want and Danny go and sort out food with a famous chef while the Twunt Twins brainstorm and fail to get many takers for their tickets. They complain that they are used to having PA’s to do everything for them and aren’t very practical. They even have to get Tim to work their stapler! Urgh, so much hate…

Trinny knows a famous chef who can get them cheap food, but when the chef’s assistant arrives at the hotel he is “misdirected” to the bloke’s suite. Morgan tells him to stay, even though they haven’t got a clue what to do with him. Trinny goes to find out what is going on and then has to actually fight her way out of the suite, dragging the chef after her while Morgan and Cambpell try to physically restrain them. What a bunch of bullying bastards. It is a good job that Trinny’s felt tip pen fu powers are strong – she basically has to colour in Piers Morgan before they let her leave and then has to have a little cry to calm down. If only Two Fisted Cheryl had been there…

The men are worried that they haven’t got enough mates, so they hire some stocks and also scrounge a load of crap from BHS as hoopla prizes. BHS!!! Awesome! I’m sure the A list celebs will love getting a free fibre filled pillow and practical nylon jacket as a prize.

Later, Maureen, Karen and Jo are sorting out the food while Trinny and Cheryl phone all their rich mates and sell them tickets. Trinny sells one to a blonde lady for £150,000 (!!!!!) and Cheryl just has to phone her hubby Ashley, his Chelski team mates and then Simon Cowell to raise about £100k. Cheryl complains of being sleepy so Trinny ropes her into a bizarre aerobic routine, explaining that this is what her Russian Doctor in Austria does with her to help her detox. Cheryl’s eyeroll to camera is comedy gold. Later on Trinny is squawking down the phone to Maureen about some irregularities with the tickets while Maureen is up to her elbows in chicken satay (oh Maureen, you should take you rings off before you do that – most unsanitary). So Maureen tells her fuck off and hangs up on her with an evil smile. Cheryl sweetly asks Trinny if she has a touch of OCD, which made me laugh a lot, mostly because it was so completely unexpected. Why Mrs Cole, with these unexpected comedy skillz you are really spoiling us!

The fair comes around and the ladies have Girls Aloud, McFly and Take That helping on the stalls, whereas the blokes have Tracy Emin (who paints some coconuts like breasts to sell) and Mick Hucknall, who looks like a creepy rapist. Ashley Cole, John Terry, Girls Aloud Nadine and Desperate Housewives’ Jesse Metcalf also show up but Ger-want’s EE castmates are conspicuous by the absence. When Siralan arrives, the women’s rides (apart from the dodgems) are pretty dead compared to the blokes but then again they don’t really care given the insane prices they got for the tickets. Oh, who has won????? Such suspense - not.

At the boadroom Siralan has a go at the blokes for the stupid time wasting business re kidnapping the chef. Then Nick and Margaret read out the results. The women get more money for the food, but the men get more money for the ride receipts. The men got about 200k in ticket sales and the women got about £600k!!! Overall, the men raised about £275K and the women raised about £750K. PWNED LOL LOL!!11 eleven!!!, as a twelve yr old on the internets might say. The look on team leader Alistair Cambpell’s face is absolutely priceless, such a bad loser. One of the women comments that they have raised over a million between them and they all applaud each other. Then Siralan says that the men have to come back into the boardroom and that someone is going to be fired!! Cliffhanger!!!

PROJECT CATFIGHT, MORE LIKE...

For the final task before the final, the four remaining contestants (Less-dour aussie Monica, Bouncy Luke, Bitter Queen Giles and Likeable Queen Wayne) have to make a wedding dress for ITV Cat Deeley clone presenter Holly (“She’s too tall!! Not perky enough!! Amend the formula!!!”) and what’s more, they have to make it in Debenhams on Oxford St on the shop floor while the hoi polloi leer at them. They all get to quiz Holly on what kind of dress he likes (there is a funny bit where Holly says “not white” and Monica starts chanting “Holly’s not a virgin!”) and then talk to two top frock designers (who both look as if they have stopped off on the way to notorious gay muscle club AM:PM) about, um, other things to do with dresses.

They buy their fabric and all moan about having to work in Debenhams with shitty sewing machines. Giles and Luke panic and are a bit rubbish! Wayne and Monica, not so much! Then Giles makes me hate him slightly less by going to the Julian MacDonald “Designer at Debenang” bit and making fun of all the shitty clothes.

For the “something old” they have to go to an antique shop and buy something – Monica and Giles both buy weird old hats and the other two buy jewellery. For the something borrowed bit they are allowed to borrow something from Debenhams shop floor – I would have chosen a Wii myself but they all chose shoes… They then have to show their dresses in the shop window and see what people think of them…

Monica’s – a pretty, eggshell blue dress with flowery bits on the shoulder straps and a tulip skirt. My favourite, though the antique granny hat she puts on the model is not great.

Luke’s – is not properly finished as usual. It is white (gasp!) with an excessively low cut bodice and a huge skirt that looks a crumpled up paper bag.

Giles’ – what the hell? It is sort of light gold coloured and covered with bits of torn up lace so it looks like a bird’s nest. Also, it makes the model who later wears it look as though she is huge. Not at all flattering.

Wayne’s – is sort of ivory coloured with black lace round the bodice and a black netting bustle thing. It would be a nice dress for anything apart from a wedding, unless you were Elvira queen of the night or something.

The judges say pretty much the same thing – Monica wins (hurrah!) and Wayne comes second. We are down to Giles and Luke and the voice over helpfully reminds us that Luke has won the weekly tasks a few times and that Giles has never won. They are given a final moment to try and saves themselves. Giles bitches about Luke’s time management skills and Luke says that Giles’ designs are “dated” and that he dresses like a clown (paraphrase…) Meow!! Of course Luke wins – I can’t believe I actually got the finalists I wanted!!!

NO KELLEY, YOU’RE THE NEXT FASHION VICTIM

Hurrah, Project Catwalk is back, this time with Kelley Osbourne replacing wooden Liz Hurley as the hostess – she is lots better than the Joan Collins de nos generation but still has to cope with the dreadfully stilted scripted bits, oh well.

It’s a reality show for fashion designers where each week they have a task (ie make a stylish dress for Tara Palmerama Tompkinson out of office supplies!) and the worst one gets the boot. The last three have to go away for six months and then come back with a proper collection for the final. The mentor is still Ben De Lisi. I saw some of his fancy frocks in the paper during London Fashion Week so he must be properly famous! His mentoring style involves flapping round telling everyone they are doomed and rubbish and then having a queeny fit when they ignore him. A colleague of my boyfriend was chatted up by Ben in a narsty gay bar in soho the other day. Apparently he (Ben that is) was off his tits…

The judges are (1) a hard faced lady from Grazia (a mag which does not exactly scream “FASHION!!” to me – more like “How to copy Teri Hatcher’s style whilst shopping exclusively at New Look and H&M”) and (2) baleful orange welsh goblin Julian MacDonald. Julian is rocking a dreadful Farrah style perm this series and still amuses us by saying things like “That is the ugliest dress I have ever seen in my life” and “What a load of crap!” to contestants faces.

The competitors have been whittled down and now we have left

1) Giles: A spiteful queen who acts like a David Walliams character all the time and appears to do all his shopping at Burton. My fave moment of the series so far was the look on his face when everyone said he was the worst designer. I hope he loses soon.
2) Wayne: Another gay – this time a fetish club host (ie has to dress up like member of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and say “You’re not coming in dressed like that” for a living). He would be quite handsome apart from his retarded clothes/hair but sadly has a rotten brummy accent. Possible final three but has a tendency to make outfits that are more like costumes than clothes, apparently.
3) Shawla: A girl with a severe fringe who thinks she is the best at everything when she patently isn’t – ie one outfit made the recipient look like a council estate midget, in Julian MacDonald’s professional opinion. What is worse she keeps going on about how awesome she is too. Get evicted soon pls thks.
4) Luke: A cute young black guy with a big afro. Is quite likeable and enthusiastic but is also about twelve years old and not very experienced. I always think he is going to be evicted due to his youthful inexperience and poor time management skillz but then he won last week so I hope he gets to the final three…
5) Monica: A dour Australian girl with a severe bob. Is quite moany and negative but seems to be one of the most talented and skilled and is kind of no nonsense. Dour Australian girl to win!

MASTERCHEF GOES LARGE DRINKING GAME

If you want to guarantee that you’re pissed before 7pm, take a drink whenever…

Anyone says they “have a passion for food”
Anyone is asked whether “they’ve got what it takes to win Masterchef”
Anyone is asked/explains why they want to “change their life”
Anyone says “plate of food”
Any time the competition “just gets tougher”

MYSTERY INGREDIENT CHALLENGE
Any time someone uses every single ingredient in their dish
Any time someone makes something piss easy like cheese on toast or pasta with bits in it.

PROFESSIONAL KITCHEN CHALLENGE
Any time the proper chef asks how long a dish is going to be, the competitor says “Three minutes, chef!” and the proper chef says “Well, you haven’t got three minutes!”
Any time a competitor has to chuck it away and start again from scratch

FINAL COOKING TEST
Any time someone makes something really rank (radish broth??? vom!!!)
Any time a judge refers to “big flavours”
Any time the best looking (male or female) contestant gets through to the next stage

FRIDAY FINAL MYSTERY INGREDIENT TEST
Any time someone gets their fancy flavoured vinegars mixed up