The Charlotte Church Show series one
Channel 4
It’s time to face facts, buddy. Your girl is with me now. She’s had it with your weak half-assed arrhythmic fucking as you kneel hunched over her, eyes popping like an epileptic, lungs making noises like a 30 year-old lawnmower engine starting up, hands tearing holes in her linen sheets. She’s now with a man who can tear that ass up night after night with blistering intensity. A man who eats pussy with the delicate yet firm stroke of a man teasing pearls from oysters while you go down like you’re chomping on a lukewarm fish supper, wiping your snot on her rug, dribbling and gasping for breath as she reads a copy of Marie Claire behind your head, her internal dialogue berating your inept munching.
"You go down like you’re chomping on a lukewarm fish supper, wiping your snot on her rug, dribbling and gasping for breath as she reads a copy of Marie Claire behind your head."
A man who makes her come with such intensity that adjoining houses have to be evacuated due to the dangers of falling masonry and eardrum damage. A man whose conversation ranges from in-depth discussion of Ancient Greece to a devastating critique of Teilhard de Chardin’s process theology while yours ranges from how big the turd you just dropped was to debating whether or not you should move out of your mam’s. Just accept that your girl settled for you when she was bored and used you for someone to go to parties with where she could meet a real man and that the thousands of pounds you spent on gifts in the hope of distracting her attention from the fact that she hooked up with a loser were wasted. Lower your goddamn expectations you punk bitch and face the fact that you’re not me.
"It was about as welcome as the face full of cum Clarice Starling gets from Multiple Miggs in Silence Of The Lambs."
You certainly couldn’t get with the divine Charlotte Church, the Welsh fertility goddess and drunken lush who is exactly the kind of important female celebrity who can’t get enough of Aerial Telly. Lovely Charlotte has her own show which premiered on Channel 4 last night and it was about as welcome as the face full of cum Clarice Starling gets from Multiple Miggs in Silence Of The Lambs. The whole thing kicked off with Charlotte singing a self-mocking feem choon which really was painfully unfunny. With lines like "I’m saying theme song quite a lot" and "if you don’t like it you fucking will" it went on far too long and immediately gave you that Scooby Doo "ruh-roh!" feeling that you were watching a popular Thanksgiving bird that gobbles and goes well with bread sauce.
Will and Grace star Eric MacCormack, appeared with Charlotte in Hywl and Grwys, a Welsh version of Will And Grace. Charlotte gave it all she had but it was a predictable run-through of homosexual single entendre that even Graham Norton would think twice about.
"Hywl and Grwys… a predictable run-through of homosexual single entendre that even Graham Norton would think twice about "
There was a bizarre pre-filmed stunt which had her undercover speed dating prosthetically made up to look something like an ugly(er) version of her DJ ex-boyfriend. This was actually OK but it was just really, really strange. There was a big reveal moment as she tore off her latex make-up like some prankster supervillain to show that it was in fact NOT DJ Charlie but I, Charlotte Church. "Yes, but why?" was the question the speed-daters were too polite or too shell-shocked to ask. I hope the women involved asked for a refund. There they are trying to rebuild their shattered love lives after dating men like you for years and they are waylaid by a celebrity mocking the whole process.
"You could hear the rattling of chains from the cathode ray crypt as she descended like Persephone into the TV underworld of ‘oh fuck, what have I done?’"
The whole thing felt wrong. Nothing cohered and none of the individual elements felt like they had a right to exist. Had some well-meaning editor cut out the unnecessary, the repetitive and the confusing we’d have been left watching the trailer. Having as her first guest Denise van Outen, host of the worst Friday-night show ever made, smutfest taste vacuum Something For The Weekend, wasn’t a great omen either. It felt a little like Denise passing the torch of piss poor Friday-night telly on to Charlotte. You could hear the rattling of chains from the cathode ray crypt as she descended like Persephone into the TV underworld of "oh fuck, what have I done?".
Michael McIntyre provided the unfunny funny commentary on the week’s events and was joined by Denise and Charlotte reading out autocue topical jokes that didn’t make it into last season’s Parsons and Naylor. Charlotte spent much of the show with knee boots tucked underneath her on the sofa in cosy chats with Denise van Outen. You half expected her to light up a fag and start on about how "My Gav loves my curves, you know ". Actually, at one point she kind of did.
"This was like watching one of those thigh high tackle replays on Match of the Day with Lawrenson saying "that’s career-threatening". This is the kind of show that ends careers."
Watching this was like watching one of those thigh high tackle replays on Match of the Day with Lawrenson saying "that’s career-threatening". This is the kind of show that ends careers. Charlotte is still an engaging, beautiful young woman with a big voice and a big heart and people like her for it. But much more of this televisual syphilis and she’s going to find herself struggling. And I really don’t want that.
The best thing about it: Black, bald Charlotte Church speed dating.
The worst thing about it: The feem choon. A dicey start from which it never recovered.
The verdict on The Charlotte Church Show: Lazy, confused and cheap.
Marks out of 10:4
