|
The Greatest Shows On Earth - C4, 10pm
You can tell a lot about a country from the television it watches.
You’ll learn more about Brazil from tonight’s show than you did from their hand-over celebration at the closing of last year’s Olympics.
Not least that the taxi drivers watch their TVs even while they’re driving.
The brilliant Daisy Donovan is our guide in this new four-part series and I can’t understand why she isn’t on the telly more.
As she dives into the Brazilian TV schedules, she doesn’t just smirk and read an autocue like Clive James or Chris Tarrant used to.
She takes part in the shows, asks all the right questions and is honest and funny about all the behind-the-scenes carry-on, even pointing out when she’s being manipulated by her Brazilian hosts.
She also sounds exactly like Emma Thompson.
Grabbing most of the airtime tonight is a reality show beauty contest called Miss Bum Bum – a quest to find the best booty in Brazil.
Brazilian women, Daisy’s told, have the highest self-esteem in the world, which sounds plausible, if impossible to back up.
Political correctness evidently doesn’t count for much in Brazil and, in a country with a murder rate 18 times higher than ours, that goes for TV’s attitudes to violence as well as sex.
Daisy visits a real-life crime show called Na Mira where corpses in the street equal lunchtime entertainment. “We’re living in a very difficult time of crime and insecurity right now,” Na Mira’s host tells her.
Not a slogan you’ll see splashed around when they host the World Cup and the Olympics over the next few years, I’ll bet.
@DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook
|
