review of Vanessa Feltz's new show

[faceless]

FELTZ'S REAL LIFE TORTURE
10 December 2006

HOW proud new ITV boss Michael Grade must be now that he's in charge of the channel responsible for Vanessa's Real Lives. The ailing network's self-appointed saviour arrived just in time for the launch of the frightful Feltz woman's dismal dive into the gutter. If this is the kind of exploitative garbage they're screening, it's all too depressingly clear Grade has a herculean task.

What a spiritually uplifting experience it was as hectoring host Vanessa spent an entire hour every lunchtime bullying various inadequates over their sad little sex lives. And when an oddball health freak called Jim Crawford drank a glass of his own freshlyproduced urine for the cameras - well, my heart simply soared. This is an inspirational new dawn for the television industry. A programme from the sewers for people who find Jeremy "vile" Kyle too intellectually taxing and are daunted by the intimidating upmarket style of Trisha Goddard.

"On Vanessa's Real Lives today," declared the announcer just before Monday's barrelscraping opening salvo. "The woman with six kids by five different men! The daughter who shopped her dad for murder... and the seven-foot couple!" Get the picture? But lest we forget Vanessa's own murky real-life story... In 1999, angry Beeb bosses swung the axe after the show was found to have been duped into booking fake guests in a scandal which earned her disgraced production the nickname Feltz's Filthy Lies.

So now the unacceptable face of blonde ambition is back, fronting the same kind of recycled rubbish she is desperate to persuade us that this time round it's all kosher. She keeps saying: "Incredible people, amazing stories, all unbelievable - but all of them true." Trouble is, that's the worst thing about them. If only multiple mother Sandra Blackman's tawdry tale wasn't true! Described by her GP as "a walking social disaster", Sandra didn't quite grasp the concept of civilised debate.

Appalled that she had effectively dumped four of her children, a woman in the studio asked: "How can you say you're a caring mother when you've not cared for most of your kids?" "You can shut up," yelled Sandra. "Shut your face." Another audience member inquired: "You're taking no responsibility. Haven't you heard of contraception?" "Fuck you," came the considered reply.

For an excruciating half-hour, this strange creature suffered the agonies of mob rule as Vanessa ruthlessly whipped up the general sense of outrage. Finally, seething Sandra realised she'd been set up and snarled: "I wish I hadn't come on the show." Two days later, in the interests of gender equality, we were treated to the thoughts of 21-year-old Keith MacDonald, who has five kids - the first of whom was born when he was 14 - by five different mothers. "Obviously there's no question of you firing blanks," trilled Feltz. "Have you ever used a condom?" Vanessa's job is to unleash torrents of righteous indignation while her illprepared guests wonder why they ever agreed to trial by TV.

It's not that I don't enjoy some of the garish stories Feltz's low-rent offering specialises in. Lots of people like this stuff. But why are the poor saps on screen subjected to such humiliating ordeals? Throughout the often tedious, way-too-long proceedings the hostess with the leastest rushes round with her microphone encouraging everyone to verbally attack the hate figure at the centre of a kind of studio bull ring.

The set is a puke-inducing splurge of yellow and orange, punctuated by symbolic V signs - as if to remind us that Vanessa's Real Lives is a two-fingered insult to our intelligence. "When my marriage ended," said Feltz as she grilled a 37-year-old teacher over her affair with an under-age schoolboy, "one of my daughter's teenage friends came on to me and told me I was a MILF - a Mom I'd Like to F***. I wouldn't have dreamed of it. But I was very pleased he called me a MILF."

That's only because you were kind to his guide dog!

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haha, I've not even see the show but I can guess that this review is pretty much spot-on... I couldn't care less about these people who have appeared on the show - the people in the audience are the real scum if you ask me... judgmental bastards who have nothing better to do with their time than throw shit at strangers!