This is a guest post from Nick Bryans. He’ll be back for more.

I applied for a job with Channel 4 the other day. Cool, I thought. ‘Trendy’ company. The sort of place where you could go to work wearing jeans, or even have a visible piercing and/or tattoo. You know, trendy. Every desk has a recyclable, cardboard coffee cup on it and everyone uses a Mac. TRENDY!

That was 3 weeks ago and I haven’t heard a response. I’ve essentially given up. But it didn’t make me angry or bitter.

Channel 4’s ‘Natalie Cassidy: Becoming Mum’ did.

This has to be the single worst show I have ever seen, and I’ve watched Danny Dyer; World’s Deadliest Gangs and Fash FC, so, we’re talking about quite a prized mantle here.

Natalie Cassidy, for those that have a life and haven’t got the faintest idea who she is, played Sonia Jackson in Eastenders. She was the tool who was out-acted by Wellard (the dog) and Dean ‘The Gaffer’ Gaffney. She got knocked up by some blond dude, then got written out I think. God knows how. Let’s just say, erm, she left.

So what is she up to now? For those people who care or have recently been lobotomized: enter this show.

‘I’m Natalie Cassidy. Former actress, TV presenter……and party animal!’

WAHEY! ALL ABOARD THE BANTER BUS! EPIC BANTZ THIS WAY! Yeah, o’l Nat is a self-confessed party animal. The term ‘party animal’, to me, seems to be a term that people who can’t handle their alcohol use. Sorry to sound like a granddad, but if someone says to me ‘Like, it was SUCH a RANDOM weekend. Ended up off my face dancing on a table-top. Don’t even remember how I got home!’ I assume by ‘random’ they mean ‘planned a week in advance’, by ‘off my tits’ it was ‘2-4-1 drinks in nondescript, provincial nightclub’ and by ‘don’t remember how I got home’ they mean ‘reasonably priced cab ride’.

‘The tabloids are obsessed with my weight…and my partying’

Are they? Really? No offence but I hardly think that you falling out of the Luton branch of Vodka Revolution is really the ‘hot scoop’ on Fleet Street.

‘But in the last year I’ve changed. I’m met the man of my dreams and I’m having a baby.’

Okay, so it’s one of those ‘wild-child that’s been tamed’ type things. Great. There is NOWHERE NEAR enough of these on TV. Oh, and for the record, the man of her dreams – whom we are introduced to in the précis – compares himself to a runner-bean and does an impromptu Cornish accent. He is a cock, basically. Or in idiot-speak, ‘a kooky comedian who takes a sideways look at life. He’s maaaaad!’.

‘But can I quit the booze and fags, and balance the showbiz lifestyle and press intrusion with family life?’

I don’t want to break it to her, but she’s not Keith Richards. Necking a bottle of wine and the gutter press taking a photo of you stepping out of a cab does not make you a rock-icon.

Despite Natalie’s best efforts to get me to switch off – and trust me, she has really given it some – I decide to continue watching.

It’s awful.

This episode’s highlights include;

‘I get the chance at my dream job… hosting Channel 4’s 5 o’clock Show.’

Nope. Never heard of it either.

‘We travel in STYLE to the Isle of Wight festival.’

It’s a camper-van, love. A camper-van.

‘I escape to a STUNNING Mediterranean island with the girls.’

By ‘escape’ she presumably means ‘flew Ryanair from Gatwick’ and by ‘Mediterranean Island’ she is referring to Malta. Why not just say ‘we flew with Ryanair to Malta’? Oh yeah that’s right, because Ryanair and Malta are shit and boring.

The thing about the show is this; it’s not offensive, it’s not vulgar. It’s just so depressingly dull. The show opens with them moving to Hertfordshire to ‘escape the press intrusion’. Yeah nothing ironic about inviting a film crew to shoot you moving house, with the distinct caveat of said move being to escape the press. She shows us her biscuit tin. That’s not a euphemism. It’s the highlight of her new home. Her mum had one, apparently. It’s important, apparently.

‘It’s been brilliant, there’s not been a single paparazzi since I arrived!’

Yeah, except the huge camera and boom mic a meter from your face.

‘They might know I’m here.’

They might not care.

She is clearly so desperate for the ‘paps’ to turn up that I’m surprised she isn’t outside with a flare gun and loudspeaker shouting ‘Look! It’s me! Sonia! You know, the one who used to drink booze and smoke fags!’.

She making Adam (the dip-shit boyfriend) a meal next. Its quiche. She bought the pastry cases, so essentially she has thrown a load of cheddar cheese in premade cases. THAT ISN’T COOKING! Adam is shocked. Boringly shocked, I should add.

The rest of her week pans out as follows.

- She’s off to a presenting gig at Channel 4. Rufus Hound does a bit of bum-licking. Rufus Hound?! I liked that guy. She struggles to read off the auto-cue, but by now that should come as no surprise.

- Adam and Natalie then talk about her eating raw lemons. For about 5 minutes. I feel my brain melting.

- They are then off to the OH CHRIST I’M SO BORED OF THIS SHOW. AHHHHHH.

Okay, focus. They are going to the Isle of Wight festival. Last time her luggage was chock-full of fags and booze. You know, cos she is DA PARTEE ANYMUL, innit. This year she is packing Febreze and toilet roll. We then get a short vignette about Adam being a bit camp because he uses wax and hairdryer. If that’s considered gay, then I suppose that makes me resemble and extra from Prsicilla; Queen of the Desert. She went with Nikki Grahame of Big Brother fame last year. Christ, imagine being stuck in a tent with those two. If it was me, I think my packing would consist of a cyanide capsule and a sick bag.

She’s pregnant, so they’ve taken a camper-van. She’s calling it ‘glamping’. I’m calling it ‘a camper-van’. It’s got everything, apparently. Well, as long as you consider everything a fridge full of beer and two TVs. ‘The main priority is beer,’ says Adam’s mate. Cor, what a LAD.

‘The Isle of Wight festival is great,’ apparently. I wouldn’t know, all I’ve seen so far is Adam’s mate dicking about on the dodgems. But according to Nat, ‘it’s a shame the cameras can’t come in.’ But I thought? The press? And the move? And evil cameras? Confused. Adam is pissed as a fart. ‘I don’t remember getting off the motorhome’. One word for him: geezer. They have a fight, he tries to wander off, she cries. Sounds exciting; is not. She naturally remains mic’d up for the whole thing with the cameras rolling, displaying worryingly low levels of shame.

Oh no, SCANDAL! The bladdy Daily Mirror have claimed she was drinking PINTS in the VIP tent. This wasn’t true, we hear. So, ignore it? Pfft, as if! She runs off to Adam’s mate to tell him. We then get talking heads of both Natalie and Adam harping on about how it’s not true. ‘That papers make up so much shit’. Razor-sharp analysis from Adam there. Adam is sent off to BUY the papers. You know, those BASTARDS who make up ‘SO MUCH SHIT’. Adam knows the best way to prevent this is to give them money. Natalie is in the papers. She’s overjoyed. There’s a story about Adam drinking pints and her being pregnant. Seems fair to me. ‘Well its absolute bollocks, isn’t it’. No, its true. You husband got battered and you’re pregnant.

‘Let’s say the head of Mothercare was reading that. If they want to do some advert, they might read that and strike me off their list’.

Jesus, and I though what was going on in Darfur was a crisis.

Later, she decides to have a weekend away. It’s alright, this failed soap actor lark. Weekends away, festivals, TV shows; I might try and get myself a part on, I dunno, Emmerdale. I could be a cocky business student who moves to the farm in an attempt to modernise this emerging market. Build a shit wine bar or something. But I have a dark secret in my past that I’m escaping from. Should get AT LEAST 2 weeks in Majorca out of that. Result…

Anyway, the holiday looks terrible. Like Sex and the City – if it were sponsored by Primark. They have a debate about sake. It is a boring debate.

The prevailing factor of this show is just how boring it is. They talk about biscuit tins. They talk about lemons. They talk - on, and on, and on - about newspapers. Her sheer desperation for any scumbag paper to give a shit about her becomes quite depressing as well. I am sat constantly thinking, why was this commissioned? Why is this on my TV?

I know I’m not the demographic, but that aside; it’s terrible. It’s boring. It’s dull. It’s without any artistic merit. It sets a bad example. It never should have been invented. It deserves to be cancelled and never spoken of again. It gives me a headache. It makes me physically angry.

But honestly. I’m not bitter about the job.

To view Nick’s blog, which has an even wordier thing about Natalie Cassidy, check out lostintransgressions

Comments

1. Emsbabee says:

   November 26, 2010 at 3:09 pm

   She has a column in New magazine as well, alongside the cerebral likes of Kate Garraway and Kim Marsh. I really had to question exactly where my life was going when I found myself reading that week after week. I don’t care what’s going on with your placenta Nat. NOBODY CARES. Bet they only paid her about £2.50 for it as well.

   Love this post by the way.
2. 123456789 says:

   December 20, 2010 at 10:26 am

   You’ve obviously got some personal hang ups. You’ve taken quotes from the show and written them in a different context which just makes you look like a bit of a snob. It’s not prize winning television, but you seem to concede to the pre-conceptions of what the tabloids have written about certain celebs, without any kind of original or personable level.

   I don’t care that I wrote this comment poorly, got my point across.

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