TV Review: Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents by Hannah

Sun, Sex and Epic Privacy Invasion

Parents – there comes a time in your child’s life when you just have to let go. Is your child nineteen? Are you still calling him Munchkin? That time is now. Or, alternatively, you could follow him to Ibiza with a BBC Three film crew to spy on them during their first holiday abroad.

Ollie, or Munchkin as his mum Lynn likes to refer to him, is finally breaking away from his ancient parents and going abroad for the first time. Ollie wants his Mum to see him as a man, and probably to stop calling him Munchkin. I think she might end up seeing him as a bit too much of a man.

Ollie’s dad, Harry, has never owned a passport. “I love England. Devon, Cornwall, Hastings. Kent. A green and pleasant land!” Harry declares happily. I’ve been to Hastings. It was shit.

Ollie is joined by Shannon who suffers from an overprotective, giant, angry father. Dad Jerry used to be a bouncer in Preston, so has spies in every club. Shannon wants to move to London and get a nice flat, but Jerry is not up for that. This holiday is an opportunity for Shannon to prove to her terrifying Angry Dad that she is responsible. Obviously, she doesn’t know that he will be watching her every move.

The girls arrive in Ibiza, and Shannon immediately drops her passport inches from her person. Angry Dad will not be impressed by this display of youthful inadequacy. “I’ve only been here two minutes and I’ve already dropped my passport,” Shannon informs us. Yeah, okay Shannon, we get it, you dropped something on the floor. It doesn’t make you incapable. What a relief that friend Jayne is here to sort this unholy mess out.

“I’m the organiser, definitely,” Jayne drones on and on. “Looking after people’s passports, money, where they’re going, making sure they’re listening, because a lot of people don’t listen to any instructions which is bad really because anything could happen while we’re out here.”

NOTE TO SELF: Never take Jayne on holiday.

Predictably, Passportgate doesn’t go down well. “Shannon losing her passport is a big thing. She can’t look after herself,” complain her parents. SHE DIDN’T LOSE IT! IT’S RIGHT THERE ON THE FLOOR! SOMETIMES THINGS FALL ON THE FLOOR!

Shannon is making the most of her freedom by going out in an outfit that would have been vetoed by Angry Dad back in Preston. A pair of pants. It’s not long before she is causing more controversy by leaving her drinks unattended. Except they’re not unattended because they’re being filmed by a BBC THREE camera man. I’m getting pretty good at predicting what will enrage Angry Dad, and this is it! He looks like he wants to reach through the screen and snatch the drink out of her hands. “Some of the things I’m seeing are opening my eyes, I’m not doing enough, I need to do more,” he rages irrationally, with mad eyes. “When Shannon goes out she will have a bodyguard everywhere she goes.”

Can we just step back a moment and remind ourselves of the fact that SHE IS NINETEEN??

Oh God, it’s time for Shannon’s parents to reveal themselves to their daughter and ruin her entire holiday. Shannon is soon crying, and the voiceover tells us that the family refused to continue filming. THAT WENT WELL THEN DIDN’T IT. Another family ruined by BBC Three.

But hey, Ollie is also in Spain! It’s only night time and it’s already hotter than Portsmouth. This is blowing his mind! It’s time to get out there and experience some Spanish culture… in one of those horrible imitation British pubs. “The atmosphere around the bar is very homely, very British.” Ollie nurses his pint as the other boys break into a chant of “ENGLAND!” Ah, continental culture. Meanwhile, his parents have landed in Spain. It’s all new and bewildering for Harry and Lynn. That’s not to say that they haven’t had their wild times:

“I’ve been on a lads’ holiday,” smiles Harry. “To Hastings, Haven holiday park. Six lads in a caravan.” Not Hastings again, Harry!

The next morning, Ollie’s parents prepare to watch footage of their precious cherub’s first night in Ibiza. “If it was my first night here as an 18-year-old lad, I’d be up to pretty much the same as Oliver, drunk in a gutter,” says Harry. Do they even have gutters in Hastings?

“They’re being normal lads so far,” says Ollie’s dad happily, as mum Lynn looks like she wants to cry over the footage of Munchkin shouting and drinking shots. Save those tears, Lynn; it will only get worse.

“Ollie is maybe the most mature of all of us,” muses one of his friends. “An old man trapped in a young man’s body.” Tonight that old man turns nineteen, and he is determined to have a wild night. His parents are prepared for lots of drinking footage.

“I think most fathers would want their son to have a good time, because once they’re married, it all stops.” Both parents laugh at Harry’s remark. It is the sound of broken dreams.

Ollie’s big celebration kicks off with shots of hard alcohol. He is wearing a skirt. Just a normal 19^th birthday, except that Mum & Dad are hiding in a van watching on a monitor. They are on fine form. “He’s certainly keeping his liquids up, but they’re the wrong kind.” That is the most Mum thing anyone has ever said. “On my 19^th birthday I don’t remember wearing a skirt. And to be honest I don’t remember much about it at all,” Dad informs us helpfully. You were probably in Hastings, Harry. Ollie is hitting it hard, and is soon throwing up on his own shoes in a horrible takeaway. He is covered in vomit, but in Ibiza that doesn’t stop you pulling. All I can think as I watch Ollie gyrate against yet another girl is “his Mum is going to have to watch this”. Unsurprisingly, it is super-awkward. Oh, Munchkin. Harry, however, seems oddly proud of his son’s hormonal rampage,

“It’s definitely easier for me to see Ollie performing with the females as he was than his mother, probably because I’m a male.” YEAH, YOU PROBABLY DID ALL THAT WITH LOADS OF GIRLS IN HASTINGS, EH HARRY?

Unfortunately for Lynn, things are about to get worse. Much, much worse. The boys are hitting the bars again, and it looks like Munchkin might actually pull! His parents are watching on monitors in the club. Lynn is not impressed with Ollie’s new, blonde, female friend.

“She’s far too old for him.”

“She’s not is type, is she?”

“I don’t think she was interested, far too old for him.”

Don’t worry, Lynn; I don’t expect he’ll be inviting her round for Sunday lunch. Despite disapproval from (probably jealous) friends, Ollie’s paying €50 for her to get into a club. Looks like someone is getting laid tonight. Despite the steep entry-fee, the young lovebirds leave soon after in a taxi.This leads to awkwardness when his friends arrive back at the apartment, but I’m sure his father will be happy that the Munchkin is finally a man. Poor Lynn; she wishes she hadn’t watched the footage of Ollie opening the apartment door, naked. Maybe she should have thought of that before she signed up to this terrible, terrible programme..

Comments

1. Anon says:

   March 4, 2012 at 6:53 am

   Funny read.

   I get the feeling Shannon’s father is violent, that’s why her friends get upset, why she tried to say something like “he’s horrible, he always doing this”. How come he orders her to take microphone out and ‘pushes’ her away from the camera?

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