Dom Joly has taken a swing at the ITV reality show, Deadline in which he and a crew of other ‘celebs’ had to run a magazine. On The Independent website, he claims that the show was completely fake and about as detatched from reality as it could possibly be.

He acknowledges that reality TV is staged to some extent (something I think most of us accept), but that Deadline took the biscuit:

The “editorial team” of judges had clearly been told to act as though they’d just taken control of a classroom of window lickers and boy, did they love it. It was big-swinging-dick time from day one. The fact that no one with an ounce of grey matter nor a shred of dignity would remain in any “real” magazine that functioned in this sub-soap-opera manner didn’t deter our troika of “experts”. For instance, it was somewhat odd to be scolded for the quality of a one-line caption for a photograph of troubled glamour-bint Jasmine Lennard, on the same day that I had a five-page spread in The Independent.

For me though, his recounting of a conversation with a location director is particularly interesting:

“Reality TV is basically seduce and betray,” he said as I bought him another double brandy. “We give you celebs limos and fancy hotels, stylists, food and alcohol and then we stitch you up to look like morons for telly.”

Joly’s account of working on Deadline is an excellent insight into the world of reality telly from the perspective of a contestant. Definitely worth a look.