Rumour has it that in response to the outcry surrounding ITVs recent foray into social documentary, the BBC have offered the residents of Northern Moor the chance to film their own account of life in their community. Kind of a serious 'Big Brother for the Beeb'. It was then allegedly edited by the BBC themselves and yesterday screened for the residents of the area at a local college, to seek their judgement of how the editors have butchered / tailored the footage. If true, how very noble of the BBC.
ITV to be investigated?
What's arguably worse for ITV is that reports suggest that not only have they incensed a lynch mob but they have incurred the wrath of Greater Manchester police and possibly social services. Allegedly numerous sequences in the documentary The Duchess On The Estate, aired last Tuesday and concluded in the second part last night, showed young people from the age of fourteen working to uproot trees, breaking up wooden fixtures and using tools. Reportedly none of the adults working with them had been screened with necessary checks, like those carried out by the Criminal Records Bureau. I can sympathise that in order to get something done, it was a corner that almost had to be cut. Nobody wants to rely on the CRB when there's urgent work to be undertaken. And what if they lose your form, which tends to be a regular occurrence rather than a freak incident? The Duchess is a very busy lady you know? Only two days ago she was a judge at the National Guffawing Championship. No, she wasn't...but she could have been. For ITV, much of the backlash will lacerate their backs. They seemed so sure that their cocktail of get up and go enthusiasm and faux social awareness would unite everyone in jovial appreciation, that they forgot simple things like health and safety procedures and the law.
Flailing Presumptions
Much was made of the fact that Sarah Ferguson only spent ten days in the area that she said displayed a lack of community spirit, and ITV themselves were accused of presenting the area as an effigy of 'broken Britain'. She tries chatting to a few local lads in the first programme and ends up sounding like Withnail from that sequence where he suggests a jukebox at the tea shop ("Let's get a community centre in here and liven you stiffs up a bit!"). She asks them if it's boring. "No," they say, "it's just shit". An outlook which is much, much worse and more difficult to reverse. I think the unfavourable, grim tone of the documentary - where everything from the soundtrack to the editing make it feel like one of Frank Gallacher's drunken nightmares - was a huge factor in how people that know the area perceived the show. Why is the Duchess there, because she's demonstrative? It looked like she only pulled a limited number of strings and I didn't see her involved in any grubby haggling, unless you count Sir Richard Leese, chief of Manchester City Council, who couldn't have seemed more apprehensive to commit to her mania if he tried. Why didn't ITV find someone successful that was born within a five to ten mile radius and ask them to get involved? Show the young people of the area that aspiration and ambition should exist and that such confidence starts at home, at school, on the streets. Here are some famous people born and/or raised in Wythenshawe: Caroline Aherne, Paul Young, Johnny Marr, Jason Orange, Steve McDonald from Corrie and Little and Large. As far as I know they're all still alive. I bet a couple of them could have done with the gig. I mean if the Duchess had come to our street when I was fifteen talking about rebuilding my community she would hardly have been welcomed with Eccles cakes and Smiths songs. I'm from Salford, I wanted to meet Ryan Giggs, Ben Kingsley or John Virgo.
And as much as old Fergie tries, she's still very much her Spitting Image self, snorting and slurring her way through the whole debacle like an asparagus in a ginger wig. At one point she bonds with reformed criminal Simon, who tells her that he sold drugs, fought for fun, made a living out of crime and was renowned and revered for it. He poignantly and sincerely states that he regrets his illicit past and that he has been urged to go back to his wayward vocation, but being attached to the Woodville Community Centre was going to prevent him from doing so. Fergie 'yahs' her way through his touching revelation and goes, "and that's why I like you. I've made mistakes too, you know, not - I haven't sold the drugs or done any of those things. But I've made mistakes, publicly...blah blah" Oh, how she connected. Quite what she was insinuating in terms of common ground, I don't know.
Let's Look At The Positives
There were good things to come out of it. Another community centre and a massive sense of achievement for those involved in it's opening. I stress another, because despite ITV's producers and editors tugging your heart strings in the wrong direction, Northern Moor already had it's fair share of community centres and sporting complexes, including the array of facilities nearby at Wythenshawe Park. People like Dawn however, who ironically reminded me of a kind of Mike Leigh version of Dawn French, deserve credit for trying to make a difference. And although I don't think it was a good idea to be filmed all the time to prove how grubby one is getting one's hands, the Duchess obviously has a little leverage here and there (she did raise £35,000 at a posh dinner, and give Simon a platform to show his tattoos and prove to a bunch of otter eating pencil backs that even men with scars can be sensitive), so credit to her for taking the plunge in the first place. Christ, Dawn could haggle though couldn't she? Not that we really got to see it, because we just saw compliant employees at B&Q or wherever presenting cheques and/or vouchers under particularly inconspicuous signs wearing inconspicuous orange uniforms.
Real Reality TV, For Real! Maybe.
So I'm preparing myself for some televisual delights, and I pray that the BBC get the go ahead to air it on television, rather than just online or perhaps not at all. It all hinges on the residents of Northern Moor, who at least will be more widely represented once given the chance to film friends and family at will. It is, to my decreasing and disloyal knowledge, pretty ground breaking that a media frenzy in the wake of a poorly received documentary can light the stage for some actual reality TV and it is an incredibly clever to way to generate good publicity for pretty much everyone involved...except of course for ITV.
ITV to be investigated?
What's arguably worse for ITV is that reports suggest that not only have they incensed a lynch mob but they have incurred the wrath of Greater Manchester police and possibly social services. Allegedly numerous sequences in the documentary The Duchess On The Estate, aired last Tuesday and concluded in the second part last night, showed young people from the age of fourteen working to uproot trees, breaking up wooden fixtures and using tools. Reportedly none of the adults working with them had been screened with necessary checks, like those carried out by the Criminal Records Bureau. I can sympathise that in order to get something done, it was a corner that almost had to be cut. Nobody wants to rely on the CRB when there's urgent work to be undertaken. And what if they lose your form, which tends to be a regular occurrence rather than a freak incident? The Duchess is a very busy lady you know? Only two days ago she was a judge at the National Guffawing Championship. No, she wasn't...but she could have been. For ITV, much of the backlash will lacerate their backs. They seemed so sure that their cocktail of get up and go enthusiasm and faux social awareness would unite everyone in jovial appreciation, that they forgot simple things like health and safety procedures and the law.
Flailing Presumptions
Much was made of the fact that Sarah Ferguson only spent ten days in the area that she said displayed a lack of community spirit, and ITV themselves were accused of presenting the area as an effigy of 'broken Britain'. She tries chatting to a few local lads in the first programme and ends up sounding like Withnail from that sequence where he suggests a jukebox at the tea shop ("Let's get a community centre in here and liven you stiffs up a bit!"). She asks them if it's boring. "No," they say, "it's just shit". An outlook which is much, much worse and more difficult to reverse. I think the unfavourable, grim tone of the documentary - where everything from the soundtrack to the editing make it feel like one of Frank Gallacher's drunken nightmares - was a huge factor in how people that know the area perceived the show. Why is the Duchess there, because she's demonstrative? It looked like she only pulled a limited number of strings and I didn't see her involved in any grubby haggling, unless you count Sir Richard Leese, chief of Manchester City Council, who couldn't have seemed more apprehensive to commit to her mania if he tried. Why didn't ITV find someone successful that was born within a five to ten mile radius and ask them to get involved? Show the young people of the area that aspiration and ambition should exist and that such confidence starts at home, at school, on the streets. Here are some famous people born and/or raised in Wythenshawe: Caroline Aherne, Paul Young, Johnny Marr, Jason Orange, Steve McDonald from Corrie and Little and Large. As far as I know they're all still alive. I bet a couple of them could have done with the gig. I mean if the Duchess had come to our street when I was fifteen talking about rebuilding my community she would hardly have been welcomed with Eccles cakes and Smiths songs. I'm from Salford, I wanted to meet Ryan Giggs, Ben Kingsley or John Virgo.
And as much as old Fergie tries, she's still very much her Spitting Image self, snorting and slurring her way through the whole debacle like an asparagus in a ginger wig. At one point she bonds with reformed criminal Simon, who tells her that he sold drugs, fought for fun, made a living out of crime and was renowned and revered for it. He poignantly and sincerely states that he regrets his illicit past and that he has been urged to go back to his wayward vocation, but being attached to the Woodville Community Centre was going to prevent him from doing so. Fergie 'yahs' her way through his touching revelation and goes, "and that's why I like you. I've made mistakes too, you know, not - I haven't sold the drugs or done any of those things. But I've made mistakes, publicly...blah blah" Oh, how she connected. Quite what she was insinuating in terms of common ground, I don't know.
Let's Look At The Positives
There were good things to come out of it. Another community centre and a massive sense of achievement for those involved in it's opening. I stress another, because despite ITV's producers and editors tugging your heart strings in the wrong direction, Northern Moor already had it's fair share of community centres and sporting complexes, including the array of facilities nearby at Wythenshawe Park. People like Dawn however, who ironically reminded me of a kind of Mike Leigh version of Dawn French, deserve credit for trying to make a difference. And although I don't think it was a good idea to be filmed all the time to prove how grubby one is getting one's hands, the Duchess obviously has a little leverage here and there (she did raise £35,000 at a posh dinner, and give Simon a platform to show his tattoos and prove to a bunch of otter eating pencil backs that even men with scars can be sensitive), so credit to her for taking the plunge in the first place. Christ, Dawn could haggle though couldn't she? Not that we really got to see it, because we just saw compliant employees at B&Q or wherever presenting cheques and/or vouchers under particularly inconspicuous signs wearing inconspicuous orange uniforms.
Real Reality TV, For Real! Maybe.
So I'm preparing myself for some televisual delights, and I pray that the BBC get the go ahead to air it on television, rather than just online or perhaps not at all. It all hinges on the residents of Northern Moor, who at least will be more widely represented once given the chance to film friends and family at will. It is, to my decreasing and disloyal knowledge, pretty ground breaking that a media frenzy in the wake of a poorly received documentary can light the stage for some actual reality TV and it is an incredibly clever to way to generate good publicity for pretty much everyone involved...except of course for ITV.
To see Fergie interviewed on GMTV, go here.
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