Forget those who carp on about how channels like BBC 3 and BBC 4 are a poor waste of the licence fee.
Yes, they seem to show every programme about nine times to fill the hours, but by God, some of the programmes are cracking entertainment.
Take Filthy Rich And Homeless (BBC 3, 10pm). Four very well off mummies boys/girl are basically sent out to live on the streets of London.
Before you think this is another one of those 'take the mickey out of the bumbling rich', it's not.
For example, on the first night on the streets, one of them goes to kip in Mayfair, another on the Kings Road, and a third in Sloane Square.
Though there are moments when maybe they are a bit daft. After all, when one of the chaps is offered a bed at a 'bit of skirt's house' (his description, not mine) he turns it down, claiming it wouldn't be fair.
The sole girl in the series decides the best way to get through her time on the streets is to turn up at the South Bank TV studios to scrub £20 off a family friend - who happens to be daytime TV queen Fern Britton. Which would have been find, had she kept quiet about it. Only she bragged to the camera, and promptly had her sleeping bag taken off her as punishment. Still, she used the £20 to kip in a hostel for her third and final night on the street - so proving my point that this rich gathering ain't daft.
For once, we seem to have a reality TV show which can't really hide behind the social rhetoric. IT really does do what it promises - taking the rich and challenging their stereotypes of the homeless by asking them to survive on the streets.
They thought it would be over after three nights. They were wrong. The second episode, tomorrow night, sees them back on the street - with a real homeless person. Me thinks they won't be bedding down in a Mayfair doorway this time....
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