TV review: Babies, boobs and barking Brian
In her first column for
One Born Every Minute (Channel 4) is back with a new series, and I for one am thrilled. Last season’s move to the backdrop of Leeds General Infirmary brought with it a large dollop of Northern humour, personified by the bored husband who ignored his 6cm dilated wife’s screams to ask “can we get a Greggs when you’re finished?”.
Wednesday’s program kicks off with the midwives pratting about on new birthing equipment and screeching “eeee I’ve got me legs reet open!” before getting down to the more serious business of delivering some babies.
The stand out couple this week were the extraordinarily hairy, green tea swilling and patchwork trouser wearing Billy and Sara. Sara was the most pregnant lady I have ever seen, and yet insisted that she didn’t want any pain relief – choosing instead to roll about on a ball for a bit, making terrifying, guttural, dying animal noises. Her hapless husband could not for the life of him work out how to press the call button for the midwife, and so the poor woman had to squat there with her baby crowning while he turned the lights on and off muttering “bloody technology”.
He and the other two fathers-to-be featured in the programme spent most of the time hovering nervously around the bed looking terrified, rushing to provide crisps and a sweaty hand to hold, whilst staying very much at the head end. It’s not for the squeamish, but every program has a lovely mix of humour and sentimentality.
Just don’t watch it with a flighty boyfriend; whilst you’re sobbing into your leftover Christmas Toblerone about how beautiful it all is, he’ll be rocking back and forth behind the sofa praying never to hear the word episiotomy again as long as he lives.
Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 5) has started again this week, dragging it’s tired, bored format behind it like a sack full of z-lister’s tears. Luckily for the show, they’ve managed to coincide the start of the series with the arrest of one of the prospective housemates, Jim Davidson, which has given them a much needed publicity boost. Most people have forgotten CBB exists in the first place, and hardly any bother tuning in to see Brian Dowling desperately barking down the camera with fear in his eyes.
This year, the offerings include Rylan from the X Factor, a man who is mainly known for falling to the floor sobbing with his mouth hanging open like a big shiny baby bird. He’s brought several bottles of fake tan and eyebrow dye into the house, and he claims he was so distraught by Geri leaving the Spice Girls that he had to take a week off school. Clearly, he’s going to be an absolute nightmare to live with, and a joy to watch.
Also inside the house is the requisite page three “stunnah”, who’s “boobs won’t stop growing” (oh you poor soul!) and a vast amount of people who used to be on the telly, including, bizarrely, Toadfish Rebecchi from Neighbours. The show’s producers are still trying to push gimmicks about Big Brother’s “evil side”, but the viewing public could care less. We want to see Claire from Steps crying about her weight gain, Paula Hamilton downing a bottle of champers and getting her top off in the hot tub, and Frankie Dettori having a breakdown, ending up screaming and clawing at the walls of the diary room.
The last pair to enter the house are Heidi and Spencer, aka “Speidi”, a married pair of US nightmare sex dolls. In his interview, Spencer declared he ‘really doesn’t like people‘, before marching furiously into the house in full camo gear. Batten down the hatches CBB, it’s going to be a bloodbath.