Come Dine With Glee – Addictive TV at its Best
Come Dine With Me is not a reality TV show – except that it is. After all, it follows four or five contestants as they spend a week battling it out to see who can throw the best dinner party, but what is it about this particular show that makes it different?
Some people might say that it’s the show’s ingenuity. Even though it follows the same formula every week, there’s something about Come Dine With Me that keeps it fresh. Some, of course, will state that it’s the comments by the show’s narrator, Dave Lamb, that make it as addictive as it is.
Though scripted, it’s unmistakable that Lamb’s narration is one of the highlights of Come Dine With Me. Sarcastic and witty, Lamb chats to the audience while we watch the hapless contestants go about gathering up their shopping lists in preparation for their day in the kitchen. It almost makes you wonder why people still go on the show – much like Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link, Lamb has a penchant for the occasional nasty remark and contestants are lucky if they go a single night out of five without being lambasted by the narrator for any number of mishaps or behaviour quirks they might display. Those with a slightly hyperactive personality, or rude and belligerent diners, or those who like to drink just a little too much ought to beware of the cutting tongue of the narrator – though those of us at home love it!
Dave Lamb, though a much-loved key aspect of Come Dine With Me, isn’t the only reason so many viewers are drawn to it. Having worked out the perfect formula to the perfect dinner party reality TV show, producers can pick and choose their contestants based on their applications and can do so in order to bring together the most unlikely bunches of diners imaginable. This way, sparks are usually set to fly as the big personalities are pushed together for an inevitable clash, traditional old timers are teamed up with over-enthusiastic new agers and different cultures pitted against one another in the fight for a £1000. Although Come Dine With Me is a reality TV show with a difference, perhaps it’s this dose of reality – the interaction of strangers – that proves to be the real draw. Possibly best viewed in HD to catch all of those angry expressions up close, Come Dine With Me is on regularly so you won’t have to miss it!
