Tonight's TV
Blood brothers
Holby City (BBC1, 8pm); Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts (BBC3, 9pm)
WHAT on earth is the difference
between Holby City
and Casualty? People have
tried to explain this to me,
but I'm convinced that
they are exactly the same
thing. As a licence payer, I feel pretty short
changed. It's like asking for an apple and an
orange at my local fruit and veg shop and
being handed two Granny Smiths.
To me, it's a straightforward re-brand. The
oldest scam in the marketing book. Mugs will
pay good money for hundreds of yards' worth
of old rope if you give it a new name. I don't
watch Holby City because of this. And I
haven't touched a Snickers bar since 1990.
Better qualified people than me seem to disagree,
however, and the show landed a
BAFTA this week. British TV must be in a
pretty poor state if this is the best we can do.
Tonight's episode is filled with distracting
cameos from washed-up soap stars and
vaguely familiar faces from the last 20 years
of television. Emmerdale's Patsy Kensit runs
around with a mop and cake maker Jane
Asher now seems to be Holby's head of staff.
The NHS crisis really hits home when we find
out that Nigel from Eastenders is the hospital's
heart surgeon.
Two young lovers on the transplant waiting
list want to swap more than their wedding
vows, but some family meddling leads to
tragedy. Meanwhile, American dandy Dr
Michael Spence breezes through the pale blue
wards in a sparkly purple shirt, with enough
hairspray on his head to blow a Grand
Canyon-sized hole in the ozone layer. He gets
into trouble when his wife finds a credit card
receipt for a pricey necklace he bought for one
of the nurses.
The BBC is so chuffed with this format that
it now runs a cop show called Holby Blue. It's
like The Bill, but on a different channel.
Sooner or later, Holby will have a complete
monopoly on all BBC TV programmes. Next
week it will be Holby Parliament. Pat Butcher
fights a back-bench revolt over the 10p tax
rate, while Jack Duckworth flies out to the
DOCTOR DANDY: Dr Michael Spence has his own bedside manner in Holby City
Lebanon to chair the latest round of Middle
East peace talks. Back at Downing Street,
Ross Kemp plans a smear campaign to scupper
opposition leader Deirdre Barlow's
chances at the forthcoming elections.
We'll be able to watch it all on the new 24-
hour cable channel - BBC Holby. Probably.
MUCH more interesting is Blood,
Sweat and T-Shirts - a new reality TV
experiment which sends six trendy
types to New Delhi to spend a month in a
sweat shop.
The perfectly preened fashion muppets get
a shock when they finally work out the real
cost of their designer threads.
Amrita, a pampered West Londoner, starts
the show by boasting: "If my clothes are being
made by a three-year-old or a 50-year-old it
doesn't really affect me."
It begins to affect her about half way
through her first shift. After seven hours on
the factory floor, she storms out in floods of
tears. "It's like everything is closing in on me
and I can't breathe," she blubs.
Her new workmates - who sit at sewing machines
six days a week for 20p an hour - are
unimpressed with her tantrum. Lolita, who
shares a two-bedroomed house with her ten-strong
family, observes: "When you were crying,
you went outside. We are not allowed to
do this. If you really want to observe Indian
culture you must live like us."
Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts makes good
viewing and manages to tackle important issues
without being too worthy. It's exactly the
kind of public service broadcasting the Beeb
should specialise in, but is cast away on BBC3.
The programme's makers missed a trick -
Holby Sweatshop would surely have made a
primetime slot on BBC1.
9:25am Tuesday 22nd April 2008
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