Now that I’ve got used to my nice, new, big, shiny new television, I’ve finally come around to having a week off work. One of my guilty pleasures is marvelling over Phil and Holly while lounging around before I decide what to do with my day.
Beautiful though Miss Willoughby is, she looks a little scary when she descends into hysterics every three or four minutes on a screen half the size of a living room wall. It’s kind of like a pretty version of the stay puffed man from Ghostbusters! More often than not these moments of hilarity seem to happen during a cookery feature with the ever optimistic Phil Vickery, who tries his best to keep some element of professionalism in the slot, but lets face it, Holly failing to keep a straight face about popping something in her mouth makes far greater viewing. Of course, it wouldn’t be an ITV daytime show unless it was also followed by the chance to enter a competition to win a holiday and a big wedge of cash on this morning’s show (and you can find the competition question and prize at the rather amazing entercompetitionsonline.co.uk/this-morning/).
Weirdly, I’ve never been so drawn to Good Morning Britain (or Daybreak as it was formerly known), even with the former Goddess of Breakfast, Susanna Reid front and centre. There’s something that just doesn’t work about the show, but I have no idea what it is. I think it’s got something to do with being a desperate attempt to copy the big American versions of breakfast shows, but Americans don’t watch as they shoot around the house like us Brits do – we’re too focused on getting to work.
Even worse seems to be Loose Women on the other side of This Morning, which looks more and more tired as time goes on, despite the constant set refreshes and new cast of ladies of the Loose variety. I think the world has moved on since the show first aired all those years ago, when ITV lapped up the praise for daring to put a show on air that didn’t have a man in sight.
So for this week, it’s strictly going to be the mid morning show only for me. Let’s see how the big screen handles it!