The Week on the Telly: September 07 2011 by shoutingatco.ws

Mary Queen of Frocks, C4

‘IT’S TIME TO PUT MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS’, declares Mary Portas as her new series retail themed begins. This time, instead of tearing rubbish shops to shreds, she is going to open one. She can’t resist a little bit of slagging off the competition though, and storms around pointing angrily at beige dresses and tiny crop tops,

‘I’m 51 on Wednesday, and I don’t want to look like a whore. Or a Granny.’

Mary wants to dress 40+ women in a simple classic way, citing Kirsten Scott-Thomas and Julienne Moore as inspiration. I’m twenty-six, and I’d quite like to look like Julienne Moore. I don’t think she’s found a gap in the market, so much as a gap in what people really wish they looked like. No one is going to look like Cate Blanchett with high-street cheekbones and clothes from Primark.

Instead of opening a little boutique in London a la Lily Allen, Mary has decided to force herself onto already established retailers like M&S and Jaegar. You know, Jaegar, that shop where you can buy a blouse for £140. After being rejected by everyone, House of Fraser come to the rescue, and agree to give Mary Space to flog her wares in response for boundless publicity.

Personally I never shop in House of Fraser because, like most department stores, it confuses me. CEO John King is Mary’s new boss, and needs her to make £2 million in the first year. However Mary is not happy when she realises her area is on the third floor, amidst the classic formal wear. Old ladies examine hideous fascinators as Mary looks in horror at an entirely lilac mother-of-the-bride outfit. There will be none of that in Mary’s collection.

Mary begins her search for staff by recruiting from inside House of Fraser. Everyone looks suitably unimpressed by Mary’s demands for cheerful, helpful stylists and runners, as only shop staff can do. Store Manager Paul King, a terrifying ex-military character, is also sceptical of Mary’s plans. The whole of the Oxford Street women’s wear department will also be reorganised, and some existing staff will losing their jobs. Mary feels guilty, but not the extent of re-employing the miserable ones.

Next comes the inevitable market research, and Mary sends out a group of women from her target market to look at the clothes in House of Fraser. Department store clothes are always inexplicable, and seem to consist mainly of odd shaped formal wear. Someone must buy them, but Mary has no time for this mystery woman. She also has no time for House of Fraser’s womanswear and their so-called ideas. After hours of arguing….sorry….meeting, Mary gets her way. Her collection will be produced from scratch.

Since her recruitment drive at House of Fraser, only one person has replied. That one person is Siobhan, the manager of the three concessions on the third floor that Mary hates, and she’s only applied because she is being made redundant. So Mary has no choice but to put out an ad.

Mary is well into designing her collection, but the women she sent out to do market research are worried that Mary might have forgotten that middle-aged women are generally not shaped like Mary Portas, but a lot more barrel shaped. They make moulds of their giant breasts and send them to Mary, who cries with horror. Luckily, she is quickly distracted by the fruits of her job advert. Forcing people to participate in shopping related challenges is probably Mary’s greatest skill. Siobhan falls at the first hurdle by trying to dress an imaginary middle-aged woman in a fascinator. In a kind of shop staff X Factor, Mary whittles the candidates down to her final twelve. Out of pity, she has invited Siobhan back, but she blows it again by talking about fascinators. She’s out.

I have to agree with Mary on this one, the Fascinator is the enemy of us all.

The Body Farm, BBC1

I’m guessing that Tara Fitzgerald is the kind of woman that Mary Portas would like to dress, the sort of woman in her forties who manages to look glamorous even while examining horrible fake corpses and looking serious. Inexplicably, this also stars Keith Allen as a police detective. Personally, all my maverick pathology drama needs are more than catered for by repeats of Quincey.

X Factor USA, ITV2

Having exhausted the pool of musical talent in the UK, leaving the dry, withered ashes for Gary Barlow to pick over, Simon Cowell has decamped to America to continue his quest for the Holy Grail; a musically gifted woman who can look attractive even while crying. Mark, 31, seems a little confused about what X Factor is all about,

‘I don’t want to be another cookie cutter artist made in a factory.’

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