Dinner Guests Behaving Badly (Come Dine With Me)

Member Name: bluerose81

Product:	Come Dine With Me
Date:	30/08/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Learn how NOT to throw a dinner party

Disadvantages: None really

'Come Dine With Me' is an entertaining culinary reality show that has been around since 2005. The basic idea is that five amateur chefs each host a three-course dinner party for the other contestants, in their own house, over a period of five days; at the end of each evening the guests give their score out of ten for the food and the evening as a whole. The points are then totted up and the contestant with the most points wins a £1,000 prize. This programme can be useful for picking up cooking tips, but not much as they cock it up a lot of the time anyway. But it CAN be really funny!

This show currently runs on weekdays on Channel 4 at 5.30 pm to 6.00 pm. Each show begins as we watch one of the contestants preparing for the party. You can get the cocky types who lounge around all day, talking about how everything is in control, who then fly into a panic when they realise they have forgotten to get the wine! The souffles will go flat, the cooker will break, they spill the chocolate sauce all over their dinner party outfit, or they will forget to actually put the chicken in the oven which means they have wasted 30 minutes staring at an empty oven. The possibilities for disaster are endless.

The one that tickled me the most was when an endearing barrister chap, a profession that relies heavily on being verbally articulate, lost it to such an extent that he couldn't think of the word for 'microwave'. After jabbing at it dumbly with his forefinger a few times, he came out with 'the green thing that goes ping'. I was incapable with laughter.

The other four contestants arrive at a set time and here all five of them are meeting for the first time. The host usually gives them a drink while they go and get the first course ready. They are allowed to root around the house at this point, commenting on the decor, pulling sex-toys out of their knicker drawers, knocking ornaments off shelves and trying their hats on.

Once the guests start eating, the odd face will contort into a grimace, or you can get the two-faced type of contestant who quite convincingly declares that it was "absolutely beautiful" and when the host's backside has barely disappeared back into the kitchen they will be comparing it to Pedigree Chum and doing the same grimace face. The contestants also have to deal with personal dietary requirements such as vegetarian, halal, and people who can't stand prawns, to name a few. And if the host nips to the loo, it is not unusual for one of the guests to bolt to the wastebin and check for evidence that the host was lying when she said her shortcrust pastry was her own secret recipe.

Sometimes the hosts will force a kind of 'entertainment' on their guests to make the night go with a special zing, like clearing the room for a dance or getting the kaoroke out. With smiles frozen on their faces, they go through the motions to appease the host.

At the end of the night, on the way home in the taxi, the contestants give us their candid verdict of the evening and their scores out of ten, some more rat-faced than others; bragging that THEIR night is going to easily top that one, or looking a bit worried, or trying not to throw up.

Some shows are better than others, but it is rather entertaining for daytime TV. Comedian Dave Lamb provides a dry and sarcastic narration to the show which really brings out the humour of the situations. We can enjoy all this from the non-pressured perspective of our comfry armchairs. As long as it isn't our coq au vin being slagged off, or our knicker drawer being rifled through, it is quite funny.

There are also frequent repeats of 'Come Dine With Me' on More4, so you have many chances to catch it.

Summary: Puts you off giving a dinner party, but it's fun!