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The British are Coming

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Something very strange is happening to American TV – it’s come over all English.

We’re used to the sporadic attempts to remake British sit-coms for the US market – from Sanford and Son (Steptoe and Son in the UK), via an ill-advised attempt at Fawlty Towers, through to Coupling and the Office.

Most of the time these don’t work, with the standard explanations given that American audiences don’t like the cruel streak of English humour (the US versions of Absolutely Fabulous and Men Behaving Badly were so bland as to be unwatchable), and that the team approach of US sit-coms (needed because each season is so long) doesn’t sit well with the lone creator style preferred in the UK.

But if comedies don’t often work, it’s a different story with reality TV. Most Americans don’t know that Pop Idol started in England, along with Wife Swap, Nanny 911, What Not to Wear and Trading Places (the US Changing Rooms, because here changing rooms are called locker rooms so the pun doesn’t work).

There are also US versions of Airport, How Clean is Your House, Property Ladder, Antiques Roadshow, Brat Camp, Celebrity Come Dancing, Hit Me Baby One More Time and Life Laundry. Basically, any mildy watchable piece of cheap reality TV you’ve ever seen in Britain has reached our colonial cousins.

So the formats translate pretty well (I’d even argue that What Not to Wear is better here), but recently the personnel have also made it over here, with some weird results.

I’m not sure what the Amercian audiences make of Vernon Kaye’s flat vowels as the host of Hit Me Baby . . . , but everybody loves Gordon Ramsey.

Continuing the theme of British villains (Anne Robinson hosting The Weakest Link, Simon Cowell making hopefuls cry in Idol), it seems the folks here can’t get enough of Ramsey’s rants. The US version of Hell’s Kitchen involved real people rather than celebrities, competing to win a restaurant. It was riveting stuff.

And I switched on ABC the other night to see Johnny Vaughan presenting a frantic game show that looked a little like Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, but with a bigger budget.

Throw in the fey northerner Cash Peters on the Travel Channel’s Stranded, and you’ll see there are plenty of my countrymen on TV over here.

And that’s without watching BBC America, where I can currently get my fill of Little Britain, Teachers and the rest.

How long before Des Lynam’s introducing baseball games, and Paxo’s replacing the sadly departed Peter Jennings as the host of ABC’s flagship news programme?

Posted by David in • Arts reviews

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