The One Show
BBC 1
In this crazy world of political chicanery, with politicians saying sorry for nicking taxpayers’ money and the news media getting orgasmic satisfaction from a gift of a story, for relief I have turned to another siphon of public money, the BBC.
I am not an enemy of the corporation. I love much of its output, the risk-taking and the variety. But I hate The One Show. Let me be clear about this. I absolutely detest and loathe this horrible televisual magazine, because it is – and I have searched my mental thesaurus for the right word – crap.
I have tried on many occasions to like the show. I have been enticed by certain guest stars, such as Clive James, Barry Norman, Michael Parkinson and Roger Moore – people who have actually done things and have good stories to recont. But the format is so piecemeal and disjointed that, after a couple of minutes, I lose the will to live. Raconteurs are not allowed any reasonable time to tell their tales, as they are interrupted by features on consumerism, rogue businesses, insects, germs, litter and all sorts of trivia. When the features have finished, it’s back to the presenters for inane comments and banal questions. Instead of relaxing me after a day’s work, it winds me up.
Mostly, the content is a scrapbook of dull subjects, but the two frontline stars must bear the brunt for the shortcomings. I may be sexist here, but that is not the intention. Christine Bleakley is a pretty girl, great TV eye candy, but as shallow as a dish of weak Darjeeling. She is plainly out of her depth and reads scripted questions and comments with all the authority of a raspberry jelly. Whatever she is, wherever she is from and whatever she has done, we do not deserve her bland personality and lack of depth. I would rather pay additional licence fee money for a fat, ugly person with rather more intellectual substance and engaging
charisma.
However, the real venom should be directed at Adrian Chiles. I used to be a fan of his in the golden age of Working Lunch – there really was such a thing. I thought then that he was young and fresh with a casual and amusing presenting style. Sadly, The One Show exposes him as an irksome bore who thinks he is being witty. If he writes his own scripts, I despair. If someone else writes them, they should be thrown into an abyss. Chiles, for anyone who remembers his soporific turn on the BBC’s Olympics coverage, has the unique ability to use his voice as a surfing device, undulating from near inaudible to high volume and back again, depending on how interested he is in the autocue or the guest on the sofa. However, as far the BBC high-ups are concerned, he is not a broadcasting disaster but someone worth giving a substantial amount of licence fee money to front this five-nights-a-week mish-mash.
Primetime television has become mediocre television. Thirty minutes of silence and a blank screen would be preferable to The One Show. On paper, it might reads like a bright and jolly idea. In practice, it fails far more often than it succeeds. Thank goodness for Jon Snow on Channel 4 News and the TV remote control – two effective weapons against this kind of fatuous programme. But I still despise politicians for increasing my cynicism levels and resent The One Show for turning me into a sourpuss.
Joe Cushnan
