CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: The fine art of being starkers in front of complete strangers
Drawers Off: The Big Naked Painting Challenge
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Big Antique Adventure With Susan Calman
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The first rule of Nude Art Club is: no daydreaming. Just because you are standing there without undies, doesn’t mean your mind can wander.
Professional life model Roy, 43, posing for the amateur artists on the return of Drawers Off: The Big Naked Painting Challenge (C4), explained that his job was to ‘be present’.
That might seem obvious; if he wasn’t present, the five contestants would be stuck painting a vase of sunflowers. But what Roy, with one arm wrapped over his head and balanced on his toes like a nimble Greek athlete, really meant was he always had to be concentrating.
Personally, I’d be concentrating on finding another job. If you must make your living by re-enacting a nightmare, surely it’s better to choose the one where the Queen is coming to tea at your house — not the one where you’re starkers in front of complete strangers.
The first rule of Nude Art Club is: no daydreaming. Just because you are standing there without undies, doesn’t mean your mind can wander
He must like it, though. After all, life modelling is how he met his boyfriend. They’re married now. Wouldn’t you like to ask his husband: ‘So what was it that first attracted you to Roy?’
Student Mavii, at 20 the youngest of the painters competing for a £1,000 prize, didn’t dare try finding out. He had a full-frontal view, but filled his canvas with Roy’s face. Even then, he drew the poor man cross-eyed.
Mavii can count himself lucky. When this show first aired last year, the amateurs took it in turns to get their own kit off as models.
That twist has been dropped. Perhaps the producers found they were getting the wrong sort of applicants — men in grubby macs rather than smocks and berets.
The brilliant Jenny Eclair is back as host, though, with just the right amount of supportive cheer and abrasive mockery.
When Roy declared that everyone can paint, just as nobody is ugly, Jenny snapped back that she was living proof that both statements were untrue.
She resists the temptation, as the amateurs judge each other’s pictures, to make snide comments. But she isn’t gushing, either. Instead, she gives them space to be politely rude about their rivals.
The brilliant Jenny Eclair is back as host, though, with just the right amount of supportive cheer and abrasive mockery
It’s a clever balance, and C4 editors would do well to use Jenny more. Over on Channel 5, execs have come to the same conclusion about Susan Calman, who is equally assured on game shows or cruise ships.
Now she’s teaching us how to make money from bric-a-brac, on her Big Antiques Adventure (C5). She knows she’s the right woman for the job, she says, because she’s addicted to daytime telly — ‘in the same way I think I can do open heart surgery, because I watch Casualty’. Susan nearly stumbled at the first hurdle, as she revealed a fear of haggling.
Every antiques dealer who saw her admit that to expert Natasha Raskin Sharp will be rubbing their hands in glee as they double their mark-up.
They’re all chancers, of course, and Natasha confessed as much when she said that most collectors are lured in by ‘the Lovejoy fantasy’ of discovering a priceless gem. Susan misunderstood and her eyes glazed over at the thought of Lovejoy star Ian McShane’s roguish twinkle.
Bargain-spotter Danny Sebastian tried to coach her in the art of beating the price down: ‘In antiques, there is always room for a wiggle with a smile on your face.’
Susan misunderstood that, too. She’s got a smutty mind.
Her Big Adventure continues every evening this week and promises to be full of useful tips, with the fun of an auction at the end of each show. Cheap at half the price.
Old Bill of the night: They say these TV coppers look younger every day. Not always… DI Johnny Campbell, on his last case in Silent Witness (BBC1), was played by Duncan Preston — instantly recognisable from his days on Emmerdale, as well as Acorn Antiques. Duncan is a youthful 75.
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