Five have a brand new magazine series, intended to be a more relaxed and "gossipy" version of the highly-successful One Show. Cannily scheduled to get the jump on its BBC competitor by half an hour, it's difficult to see Live From Studio Five attracting much of an audience in its current form...
While a large part of Studio Five's success will be the quality of guests it can lure, and features it puts together (this opener featured interviews with the detestable Katie Price and Michael Jackson proxy Jermaine), it will ultimately live or die on the chemistry and skills of its presenters, because they spend the majority of the show chewing the fat in a Loose Women stylee...
Five have opted for a strange lineup as hosts: ex-footballer Ian Wright, glamour model-turned-mum Melinda Messenger, and Apprentice runner-up Kate Walsh. This unholy trinity got straight down to business, yakking away while badly-positioned in a straight line across a desk facing a wall where the camera crew were clustered. The girls both had fixed smiles planted on their faces, seated on either side of Wright like a visual tub of Neapolitan ice cream.
To be fair, Melinda is an attractive and likeable person, and doppelganger Kate apes her more experienced colleague. Both are bubbly, infectiously smiley, and have a blondeness to burn retinas. They can also be irritatingly voluble at times, and clearly try too hard to be liked, making it difficult to relax in their company and just listen to what they have to say. And do we really care about what they have to say?
Melinda and Kate may have their downsides, but both are in a different league compared to the always-terrible Ian Wright –- who, with nearly 15 years presenting experience under his belt, has no excuses left for his ineptitude. Nerves perhaps played a part here, but Wright essentially spent the episode leaning around in his chair, stretching his legs, and fidgeting like a toddler. Melinda and Kate valiantly tried to ignore the irritating antics going on between them, but even they had to comment on his restlessness before the first ad break.
There was a Big Breakfast-esque attempt to involve the camera crew, when a Floor Manager clutching a clipboard suddenly piped up about news of Elton John trying to adopt a child, but it all rang very false. Involving the crew is something that evolves over time. In this instance, the production crew were so silent otherwise that it felt like the Floor Manager had broken protocol and would be fired after the show. I can only hope it's Ian Wright on the receiving end of a P45.
Weekdays
Five, 6.30pm
