COME DINE WITH ME

What a show! four or five strangers pitted against one another in a programme that requests that they all have one night in which they cook for each other, basically hosting a dinner gathering. Sounds nice and pleasant doesn't it. Well, throw in a prize booty of 1000 pounds for the winner and things become murky and turn underhand.

For those of you who have never seen this show - the basic premise is - after a candidate has eaten at a individuals house - they have to then mark them out of 10 in their taxi ride home with score cards. The person with the most points at the end of the week of free food consumption wins. So, this is when things get interesting, some can be quite generous, affording the host a nice score like a seven or eight. But, you get the others, who are down right scumbags and vindictive, and give them small crummy ratings in the vain attempt to boost their own chances of getting grubby mitts on the bounty of cash. It really is shocking stuff indeed.

I just love this programme, as there are so many fantastic layers for the viewer to enjoy. The lengths that some of these plonkers go to is hilarious. They will basically use (not so calculated and well thought out) tactics to sully the names of their host.

The desperate hosts are all about making a great impression, often demonstrated by cheating and hiring professional cooks to prepare meals. Then there is the use of interesting entertainment that they provide. Which can often be ridiculous, all with the obvious agenda of making themselves look good, but many fall flat on their silly faces. Also, whilst a host is finishing off the food for the hungry strangers - the visitors are allowed to have a wander around the house and have a look at whatever they like. In other words, they have a right old snoop. (Like you would allow that). Anyway, it happens.

Some of the guests often do not get on with one another, resulting with frequent personality clashes. This is always funny to watch. Then there are the little sly disparaging comments that flow when the host is in the kitchen tending to their down right ungrateful needs.

The undoubted star of Come Dine With Me is the narrator. If it wasn't for this beyond sarcastic git the show would be redundant. He is a genius, the way he tears the hosts and guests to pieces is just too funny. One liners and cutting remarks come thick and fast as we watch these wannabes scuttle about trying to impress in a frenzy of foolishness.

At the end of the show, in the last hosts house, this is when the winner is revealed. Everybody finds out what place they came in at (if you happen to come last - then you really have no hope and maybe have been either very terrible, or the victim of a gross stitch up) up until the who came first. Queue the collection of unhappy faces and the winners happy chops gleaming as though they can't believe what has just happened to them.

Without a doubt this show deserves to be in our Collective Hall of Fame. Just thinking about it makes me smile.


Demola, TCC