Tits Out in the Garden (Ground Force)

Name: plipplop

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Product:	Ground Force
Date:	29/07/01 (741 review reads)
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Whilst I appreciate that this show was probably not designed to have a trendy, youthful appeal I have to say that Ground Force is one of my least favourite shows. It’s not because I think gardening is boring – it’s simply that the format and content of the show is uninteresting - and in addition the presenters all need a good slap.

Ground Force is basically a gardening makeover programme. Each week, upon invitation from a member of the public, Alan Titchmarsh and his crew descend on a different location where they undertake a two day challenge to give some poor soul’s garden a facelift. The makeover is always targeted as a surprise for one person, and their friends and family generally collaborate to ensure that the person suspects nothing in his/her absence. Once the two days are up, and the victim returns from wherever they have gone, Alan and his team spring out from behind the compost heap and present the newly re-designed garden as a surprise present. It’s probably quite a nice idea in theory, but unfortunately the whole concept is now wearing rather thin. In order to try and spruce things up a bit (i.e. get away with countless repeats) they now also send the team back in to have a look at the finished gardens about a year later, which is often quite interesting because things look more established, and less like a picture on a packet of seeds.

Alan Titchmarsh is a competent enough garden designer and certainly adds value to the show with his years of experience in designing and maintaining formal gardens. Alan’s designs are visually very effective, and certainly look quite impressive on paper. However, one of the problems with the programme is that Alan designs the garden every week – which ultimately means that most of the designs looks rather like each other. Certainly, the exact layout, theme and content of each makeover will vary, but the same elements are normally there – a significant quan
tity of wooden decking, a mountain of white gravel, a revolting water feature and (if you’re really lucky) a fragile-looking gazebo. Alan’s designs are consistently “safe” – there is nothing innovative or particularly appealing about any of the gardens and most of them look like a B+Q show garden. Alan T normally seems to go for the “poor man’s garden” with every piece of open soil choked in gravel (otherwise known as “low maintenance”) and expanses of lawn getting ripped up for acres of B & Q decking (otherwise known as “contemporary living”).

When the show first started, although Titchmarsh was well known, his co-presenters Tommy and Charlie were relative unknowns, which meant that he was clearly the leader. Since the show has migrated to BBC1 and gained something of a following, Tommy and Charlie no longer seem so willing to play second fiddle to Mr T, which sometimes leads to the odd moment of friction. Charlie has since gone on to present her own show, and you can’t help but think she now sees herself as something more than a co-presenter. The friendly banter between the three occasionally ends up more like childish bickering, and the trio doesn’t seem to have the same appeal that they once did.

Additionally, contrary to what most of the male population seem to think, I find Charlie Dimmock absolutely nauseating. Her ability to thrust her chest into everyone’s face may well be legendary, but to be honest I wish the woman would invest in a bra. I hate the way that she is known for putting the sex into television gardening – bouncing about the place, completely out of control, she has all the charm of one of the stone statues that she so fondly erects in people’s gardens. One thing I will say is that she works very hard – she’s not frightened to muck in with the blokes – but it’s all in the name of the whole female equali
ty thing and it all gets rather boring after a while. Besides which she is just looking for a reason to get sweaty so that her nipples stand out.

Ground Force is to gardening what Changing Rooms is to DIY – cheap, nasty and tacky. I don’t want to see things done on a budget, against the clock. I like to watch things done properly, preferably on a grand scale where money is no option. I don’t really understand the rationalisation with these mainstream makeover programmes. If they are trying to show every day people how to do something then they are failing miserably – none of the viewers could replicate what they see on TV because they don’t have the resources to help that Ground Force includes without adding to the budget. The other problem is that, so there is more of an established garden at the end for the cameras to see, Titchmarsh tends to invest heavily in established trees, shrubs and plants which most gardeners simply wouldn’t/couldn’t afford to do. This all leads to rather unrealistic expectations of what you can do at home.

Furthermore, I must be a distant relative of Victor Meldrew or something, but I think that all the farting about playing cloak and dagger is really boring. I hate the way they have the camcorder footage at the start with an interview with the “victim” – like we care what they do for a living! I’m not totally convinced how genuine the whole thing is anyway – despite torrential rain and lightning the team still manage to get everything done every week. I can’t help but think the programme-makers might slip the odd extra day into the production schedule – we’d never really know after all.

Nonetheless, I think I could probably just about stomach the show were it not for one other excruciating irritation – those blasted horns. All the way through the show the viewer is treated to snippets of music from a brass orchestra,
repetitively blasting out the same chords and refrains time after time. Just as you’re starting to relax, the horns are off; prattling and babbling away in the background like a (bad) Salvation Army band. Perhaps it’s just me, but I find the music intrusive, distracting and just plain irritating – and more often than not this will be the deciding factor in my decision to turn the television off and run out of the house screaming.

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