Writers: Jennifer Saunders & Tanya Byron
Director: Rupert JonesCast: Jennifer Saunders (Vivienne Vyle), Miranda Richardson (Helena), Conleth Hill (Jared), Jason Watkins (Jonathan) & Fern Britten (Herself)
Acidic TV host Vivienne Vyle is hospitalized after a guest takes offence to her antagonistic style, but her ratings go through the roof...The confessional talk show continues to eat up space on the UK schedules; spewing its manipulative venom across daytime TV, inspiring dirty operas and now resulting in a Jennifer Saunders sitcom!
Saunders plays the eponymous TV-bitch, her name a loose play on Jeremy Kyle, ringmistress to a circus of studio "scum" -- in episodes entitled "My Son Calls The Wrong Man Daddy" and "I Want A Vagina But Can't Kick The Crack".
Clearly intended as a Larry Sanders-style pastiche of the Jerry Springer Show, the opening episode lays down its mantra after Vivienne Vyle is hospitalized by a guest after berating him in front of the audience.
Vyle wakes up to be serenaded by her opera-loving husband Jared (Conleth Hill), the homely and level-headed half of their marriage, before her producer Helena (Miranda Richardson) reveals the "punching incident" has sent ratings skyrocketing! Some visiting American TV execs were impressed, so they show will now be re-imagined with a controversial, (hopefully) violent attitude.
It's easy to see why this show was made. The surface-level appeal of a fictional talk show, with backstage access, sounds juicy and relevant to modern TV. Indeed, this opening episode arrives hot-on-the-heels of the head-butting husband on Jeremy Kyle -- where a judge later condemned the ITV show as "a human form of bear baiting."
However, The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle didn't reach any highs of insightful satire. The talk show may be a current fixture of our schedules, but the format (in its controversial, nastier, un-Oprah attitude) is over 15 years old. Vivienne Vyle is a decade late.
It doesn't help that I've never liked Jennifer Saunders -- whose range is limited to being a stroppy annoyance or a frigid cow. These qualities make her a perfect fit for Vivienne Vyle, but the character shows no redeeming features. I like anti-heroes and "unlikable" characters in sitcoms, but they have to be in some way interesting or amusing. Vyle's just a narrow-minded pain, and the attempts to make her look fragile off-screen didn't work for me.
The supporting cast were good, particularly screen hubbie Conleth Hill, who's the perfect contrast to his wife Vyle. An awkward intern, played by Antonia Campbell-Hughes, also worked well. But Miranda Richardson has the most memorable role as a hard-drinking, chain-smoking producer called Helena. Richardson's brand of wild overacting and embellishment of dialogue squeezed the most laughs from limited screentime.
Overall, The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle was all over the place. Shows like Jeremy Kyle, Trisha and Jerry Springer are beyond parody. The backstage sequences were fun (particularly the moment a guest's anger is being fueled off-stage before he's unleashed into the studio), but scenes in Vyle's satan-red home were uninteresting and I just didn't care about the main character. Ultimately, you'll get bigger laughs watching the real thing every weekday afternoon!
4 October 2007
BBC2, 9.00 pm
