"The first thing I'm looking for, is hunger" says Gordon Ramsey in his introduction, a chef by trade, so of course he's looking for hunger, without it he'd have no business, the crinkly faced tit.
A hell of a lot is at stake at Hotel GB. In fact there is almost as much at stake as there is riffy guitar music throughout. Almost constantly.
First off, all of the employees are unemployed & fairly yooful. In classic Channel 4, ITV form, Hotel GB wastes no time in establishing the 'dramas', the 'heartfelt-stories', the 'HUMAN INTEREST' and we realise that these people have backgrounds of all things! Arrested, alcoholics, embarrassingly & socially inept! Hot-dog, entertainment in a bottle!
And so in addition, for the unemployed turned employed, there is a permanent position with Gordon Ramsey and Mary Portas for the lucky winners! Although at no point has the prospect of an actual 'competition' been introduced, by the concept of a winner has. I smell a vote. And nail-biting, lots of nail-biting. But hopefully not from the Hotel GB employees, because that'll lose their job! Maybe? What are the rules? Who knows.
What I do find funny is that Gordon Ramsey is in the kitchen, Mary Portas is a retail-marketer or something and it makes sense to have her running a business. And so, naturally, Gok Wan, well-known fashion guru is also there to...run the bar and mix cocktails. Ah. Of course. The master.
As a recent graduate of being a yoof myself, I found myself having some personal investment in the fortunes of these young employees. Not a lot, but certainly some. So it was rather horrible to have to watch these poor kiddos completely freeze up in everything they did. I could relate. It was cringey, it was certainly that. And with all the cameras everywhere, there was more than a little 'Big Brother' in all of this.
As that point, I wanted someone to tell Paddy McGuiness to stand-still and stop taking his fifth walking tour of the hotel. He's not the best person to choose as a narrator. "It's MARY Portas, Paddy, MARY Portas, not Muuurie Portas"
Phil Spencer pops up half-way through the programme, "a porperty guru", Paddy tells us, pronouncing guru correctly and also just like the name Mary. As a property guru, Phil Spencer was of course the ideal candidate to...be front of house? Hm. Actually that's quite a good joke. Touche Channel 4. It genuinely was a nice touch to throw a well-known face into an environment that he, like the new employees, had little experience of. Gordon thought he was rubbish, which invited Paddy McGuiness to go with a joke, that for me, was quite worthy of repeating here: "Stephen's SHIT!? That's a bit harsh isn't it? I'd like to see Ramsey get rid of a semi in Bolton!...and God knows I've tried"
I have to say, that the whole programme made me sick and nervous. In...a good way? We've all seen Hells Kitchen & Big Brother & X-Factor and all that stuff, but this was so much more relevant in the way that the show chose to use unemployed & essentially young 'contestants'. And if it wasn't making me sick it was boring the pants off of me because despite the different sections of the hotel being run, it's actually a rather dull programme, because working in a hotel, is dull, isn't it? That's just a fact. Why not make a show where Heston Blumenthal tries to work in a Little Chef? What's that? Oh. Someone just told me they did that a few years ago. Excellent.
As such, I somehow don't see me returning to this programme. I don't care how it turns out. EVERYONE is unemployed, not just these eight berks. The reason that it will be hard to care about this show over a long period of weeks, is that their experiences are a small drop in the ocean. So is all television of course, but this is explicitly a drop in the ocean, focusing on a topic dat is wicked prominent right now. But of course then we have Kim Woodburn straddling Doctor Christian Jessen; are we supposed to care and take this seriously or am I supposed to be enjoying these wacky, wacky characters? Who knows? I guess I'm fired. At least when I'm on the dole I know how to take it...I'm supposed to enjoy the wackiness right? In short, Hotel GB is fine, it's ok......but I have my reservations!
Boom-boom.
