» Telly Talk with Victoria Nangle
That’s the way to do it!
When Gordon Ramsay first swore blue murder at some hapless commi chef for
not being able to make scrambled eggs, television people sat up
and paid attention. Obviously, vital ingredients were mucho personality, flamboyancy, despair and resentment.
The entire venture would certainly never be motivated by purely altruistic motives. We couldn’t possibly have everyone actually liking Mr Ramsay as he saved them from bankruptcy. It’s got to be a difficult re-birth to make us enjoy the outcome all the more, when the proprietor hugs him with tears in his eyes at the end. “You’ve saved my company, my marriage and my entire planet, Gordon”, they’d mutter through a film of tears and all would be right with the world again.
Insert into this formula the names of Monty Don (C4’s My Dream Farm), Alex Polizz (Five’s The Hotel Inspector), Mary Portas (BBC2’s Mary Queen Of Shops) Cornelia Bayley (C4’s Country House Rescue) and, as of next week, Hilary Devey (Five’s The Business Inspector), and our television execs are rubbing their hands together all the way to the bank.
Business makeovers get good viewing figures. No one is happy with their lot, Britain is packed full of entrepreneurs (most trying to get on telly via Dragon’s Den) and you’re either trying to make your way in the rat race and succeed in it, or chasing the dream of escaping altogether and setting up home like Tom and Barbara Goode in the ’70s.
Either way, there’s now a telly programme to help and harangue you on your way. The question is: when did we stop being able to do things for ourselves?
The Business Inspector will see self-made millionairess Hilary doling out advice to two businesses trying to make changes. The florist – named, for the pun-lovers, Leaf It Out – is a labour of love that’s cost the proprietors’ family £11,000 in the last year. The two lovely ladies that run it sit in their shop, waiting for orders and making tea. Now I don’t have any kind of business degree going on here but it seems pretty obvious advice to simply say stop sponging and get out and do some pitches for work. Maybe I could be a self-made stately home dweller too.
The other business Hilary advises is a table-piece hire firm looking to franchise out its wares. The company’s called Table Centres. Really. Her advice? See if you can guess. Get a proper contract drawn up and invest in a good name and branding. Reckon you could do well with this too now? S’easy!
So called experts are simply successful personalities pointing out the obvious. It will always be the same: if you can’t make scrambled eggs, you’d better buck up. Nothing simpler than that.
But your choice of business advice show will depend on how abruptly you like your messages delivered. Latest newby Hilary likes to deliver it in a no nonsense fashion. She’s down with the bottom line. However, she’s still telling you all this from a Charles XIV chair in her opulent living room lit by any duster’s dream of a chandelier. ‘All this could be yours’, she’s saying. ‘This, and a television programme of your own.’ So get it right!
The Business Inspector starts on Five at 8pm on Wednesday 17 March
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