Cheap As Chips ! (Bargain Hunt)

Member Name: utero

Product:	Bargain Hunt
Date:	30/09/02 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: David Dickinson, Addictive, Audience Participation

Disadvantages: None

There are some programmes that are so simple in format. Bargain Hunt is one of those programmes, it's the antiques roadshow but with a gameshow slant and it's so damn addictive!

The rules are simple, each week two teams go to antique and collectors fairs with £200 pouns in their pockets. With the help of a antiques specialist they pick out up to three items within their budget. Then a week later they put them into auction and the winner is the team who makes the most profit or least loss. That's it, nothing more or nothing less. There's no grand cash prize for winning. It really is the taking part that counts in this show.

Bargain Hunt is the kind of show that appeals to all ages and there's one reason why. The host David Dickinson is someone who appeals to the older generation who sit there in their armchairs on a sunday evening watching the antiques roadhshow and monarch of the glen. But he also has one of those eccentric english/flamboyant styles that exude some kind of kitsch cool. For this reason alone who appeals to younger age ranges such as students as some kind of cool god who we can all bow down to. His skin is amazingly tanned, his hair is a strange kind of long, older gentleman style. The kind that would see his kind having a twenty something lady on his arm. Those glasses as well which just hang off the end of the nose....the man is a TV legend who also has spawned such catchphrases as

"Cheap as chips!" and "It's an honest piece, and a lovely thing"

The programme brings the audience in with it's game. You find yourself trying to predict what will make profit and what will loose heavily. The truth is no one can tell, experts offer their opinion but at the end of the day no one can tell and usually it depends on what kind of auction participant you get. For example you have pieces that should make a profit but are met with silence in the auction. Yet you'll have a fr
uit machine that seems to be a certain loss maker and ends up making a tidy profit.

More often than not you'll see the temas make a loss but when someone does win they go home with normally no more than a few quid between them. Yet everyone seems to have a good time and I wouldn't mid betting that there is a long list of people all looking to take part in the show in the future. It's popularity on BBC daytime TV has meant that now the show has got a primetime eveing slot on the BBC. It's deserved because it's one of the few british shows now that are actually half decent and that's because it's incredibly english.

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