Guest Author - Lauren Evans
We Brits seem to enjoy nothing more than coming home from a hard day at work, only to spend our evenings watching other people going about their own dreary day jobs. Bin men, airport workers, double glazing manufacturers, surely it's all been done? Well, gentle viewer, I'm afraid that's just not true because 'The Planners Are Coming' on BBC One. In fact, they've been and gone, and Thursday saw the final nailbiting episode in this documentary series, in which the planners smashed down illegal outbuildings, chased down dodgy developers and declared all manner of buildings unfit for habitation. While the good people of the planning profession are undoubtedly the only thing standing between us and 'Kowloon Walled City' style building madness, I remain unconvinced that they are exciting enough to warrant being on TV, despite the best efforts of Timothy Spall's action narration and the kickass rock theme tune.
In a departure from its usual highbrow documentary programming, BBC Four is spending the next few Saturday nights curled up with a romantic novel, by way of Daisy Goodwin's documentary series 'Reader, I Married Him'. In the first instalment, 'Happily Ever After', Daisy attempts to explain why intelligent, capable women get off on reading frothy romance novels. The industry is massive, which is surprising when you consider that very few people will admit to harbouring a weakness for a spot of hardcore girl-meets-boy action. Apparently, enough people buy romantic fiction to support a whole host of sub-genres (divorce-lit, yummy mummies, etc.), while Mills & Boon even have their own special series, meaning readers can be confident that each new novel will bring zero deviation from their favourite plotlines. These include Blaze (utter filth), Ruthless (grumpy dominant male, replete with issues from troubled past, tramples all over heroine but then reveals his girly side and falls in love) and Italian Husbands (although any 'exotic' husband will fit the bill here, born anywhere from the Mediterranean to the UAE).
Daisy also tries to solve the mystery of why romantic fiction gets a trashing from all and sundry, by speaking to authors such as Joanna Trollope, Jilly Cooper and Marian Keyes, discussing the extremely controversial re-issue of Jane Austen books (upsetting academics everywhere with their shiny modern covers), and conducting A Very Scientific Experiment on herself. Although the rubbish experiment was clearly a ruse to use up a spare ten minutes, otherwise I found the show thoroughly enjoyable. If you've ever thought twice about taking out your girly book on the bus to work, I can highly recommend this series, if only to prove that your Marian Keyes habit is far more respectable than some others. Next in the series, Daisy takes a look at why we all love a brooding romantic hero (BBC Four on Saturday at 9pm).
