Naked Attraction: Welcome to Blind Date in a brothel
And the award for best TV presenter of all time goes to the marvellous Anna Richardson for her powerhouse performance at the helm of Channel 4’s “daring” new dating show Naked Attraction.
Naked Attraction
And the award for best TV presenter of all time goes to the marvellous Anna Richardson for her powerhouse performance at the helm of Channel 4’s “daring” new dating show Naked Attraction.
Of course, talented Anna is also the host of the absurd food programme Secret Eaters, in which stunned fatsos fail to remember the epic feasts they’ve devoured over the past few glutinous days. “Thirteen curries, twelve portions of fish and chips, 93 biscuits, an enormous Sunday roast and seven apple pies? Oh my God… I had no idea!” Ludicrous.
After her sterling efforts in the wonderful world of gastronomic amnesia, you’d have thought the only way was up. But no. With her nude match-making series, the impressive Ms Richardson has succeeded in plumbing even lower depths. You’ve got to hand it to her.
Kicking off a horrible hour of prurient piffle, she enquired: “Could picking a partner based only on their natural beauty help us find the one?” Of course it couldn’t. Next question.
And with that we cut to “self-confessed” party animal Aina who conceded: “Getting naked to find a date is probably one of the weirdest things I’ve ever signed up to do.” But at least it got you on the telly eh?
At first, Aina remained fully clothed while assessing six blokes standing starkers in brightly coloured tubes. Their bodies were revealed one section at a time, starting with their legs and genitals. Isn’t that special?
“There’s an elephant in the room,” giggled Anna. Or, to be more accurate, a tattoo of an elephant’s face and ears surrounding some guy’s trunk-like todger. To add to his eye-catching look, he only had one leg.
As Aina stared transfixed at this extraordinary sight, Anna squealed: “Okay, what other willies are you drawn to?” Uplifting stuff.
On to exposing the next body part. “Ooh,” gasped Aina. “Flickable nips. “ Anna: “What about your own nipples?” Aina: “They’re the way in.” Good to know, thanks.
The feeble format required Aina to reject the nudies one by one. After Mr Green Tube got his marching orders, Anna informed him: “She loved your bouncing balls but on this occasion it’s a no.” What a shame.
Anxious to explain her policy on testicles, Aina sensationally revealed: “I don’t mind big balls. But maybe not too hangy.”
When Mr Orange Tube was booted into touch, he boomed: “That was certainly an empowering experience.” So getting your tackle out on the box is empowering. Really?
Back to Anna: “Okay fellas, can you please turn round and show us your bums?” Okay Anna, can please just shut the hell up?
In the end, Aina whittled her potential partners down to two. Dance teacher Rob and jumbo boy, Matty.
Oozing jealousy, averagely-endowed Rob sighed: “I would quite like to have Matty’s penis.” Matty: “Would you now?” Rob: “Not literally.” Adolescent humour at its hilarious worst.
By now, to borrow Anna’s technical term, Aina had “taken her kecks off” and was striding around the studio without a stitch on. And she had made her decision. The elephant man. Yay.
“I’m looking forward to seeing him with his clothes on,” she said. Then the beaming couple were seen enjoying a drink in a bar and we were asked to believe they lived happily ever after. As if this birthday suit system was a serious winner. Yeah right.
Next up was lingerie designer and trained masseuse Mal. As a practising bisexual, she was treated to a selection of males and females.
Also a bisexual (her partner is Bake Off star Sue Perkins), Anna asked Mal: “What kind of vagina do you like? Have you got any disastrous pubic hair stories?” No.
The inspirational questions just kept on coming. Worried about Mr Pink Tube, Anna wondered: “How do you feel about the fact that is one hell of a hairy crack?” Mal didn’t seem too concerned. But, perhaps because of the crack, she was leaning towards the ladies.
When Mal retired to strip off for no apparent reason, romantic hopeful Rebecca declared: “I think she’ll have pubes but they’ll be very well groomed.” Please make it stop.
Dismissed by some as a creepy Blind Date in a brothel, this pathetic peep show is a sordid little affair. A blatant attempt to test the boundaries and create controversy, its only real point is to showcase a parade of people (who’ll do anything to be on TV) in a state of total undress. In other words, it’s basically pointless.
But the top team at Channel 4 probably see their tawdry tosh as a triumphant success. They’re getting talked about and – woohoo – episode one pulled in 1.4million viewers. Not much of an audience… but bigger than Big Brother. Big deal.
In a brave new television world where Love Island filmed its contestants having full sex and then served up their passionate romps as light entertainment, it’s impossible to feel particularly shocked by Naked Attraction.
Daring, naughty, saucy… this pitiful production is none of these things. Witless, dreary, depressing… it bores for Britain.
But last word to the lovely Laura, who emerged from her red tube and insisted: “I definitely feel like I’ve achieved something massive here.” Why?
There are 2 Comments
Naked attraction.
Excuse me Kev, but this was a serious psychological experiment beautifully presented by the very intellectual Anna Richardson. I'm joking of course! If Anna had worn any MORE clothes, she'd be wearing a f***ing burka!
Made me feel rather inadequate the whole thing, some of those penises were ginormous. I do love a hairy fanny though. Shame we never saw many. I think the penis count was much higher! Sexist crap.
NAKED ATTRACTION....more like NEVER AGAIN for me! Episode one.
I am old enough to remember the good old glory days of 'Blind Date' on ITV with the late, great Miss Cilla Black. It was a dating show that was fun to its core and was brilliant entertainment fit for all the family to see. Many years later as a student I can remember also getting into ITV dating show called 'Dial-a-Date'. It was a much cheaper and bit racier version of 'Blind Date', but I used to regularly look forward to watching it late on a Friday night. However, last night I watched a programme that has to be the WORST dating show that has EVER been seen on British television. 'Naked Attraction' on Channel 4 is the new dating show where people select another to go on a date with, based on the quality of their.........BOOBS AND BITS!
Near the end of the show presenter Anna Richardson said to second picker Mal,
"You're one very confused woman right now, aren't you"?
I sat there watching this thinking, I'm one very confused viewer right now, puzzled how this dire show ever got commissioned in the first place. It truly was diabolical stuff to watch. It was not fun or educational or brilliantly informative, rather most of the dialogue boarded on the idiotic and the nudity on show had a rather uncomfortable voyeuristic element to it. Usually, I have a lot of time for presenter Anna Richardson but if she has not sacked her agent yet for giving her this gig, then my best advice to her is that she needs to do it now.....without delay!
The format of the show consisted of one fully dressed picker in each half of the show, coming to the centre of the studio and seeing six naked people standing behind a coloured panel that hid their identity(and modesty for the time being). It was about the furthest thing that you could get away from the brutal Quentin Tarantino film 'Reservoir Dogs', but I have to admit to smirking and thinking about this analogy as the contestants were referred to us as "Mr Pink", "Mr Orange" and "Mr Red", etc. Firstly, the panels were raised enough so we JUST saw their genitals which were then duly evaluated by Aina(first picker) and presenter Anna Richardson. I say evaluated, their comments were more like something that you would likely hear from a randy bunch of women that were out on a hen-do in Blackpool for the weekend.
After then looking at their bottoms and weighing up which ones she liked and which ones she did not, Aina then had to eliminate the first contestant. Next the panels were lifted up so all but their faces were on show now. Again, Aina and Anna then went around them to judge. It was when Anna remarked in consolation to the second eliminated contestant Maxwell that "Aina loved your bouncy balls", that I shook my head in disbelief and thought what on earth am I watching here. I am not a prude by any means, I am not related to Hyacinth Bucket in any way, nor have I ever been a member of The Women's Institute(just in case you had been wondering) but this show was too much, i.e coarse and crude.
Eventually the contestants were whittled down to two(faces and voices revealed by now) and this was where we saw the picker get naked with them too. With the second female picker especially who was a young bi-sexual lady from Guildford called Mal, the big build up of her also getting her kit off had this slightly uneasy pervy feel to it for me. Aina and Mal then chose the winner by selecting who they would like to go on a date with(clothes on for this one). We saw footage of their dates and then a reporting back a few weeks later about how things were going, i.e were they still dating each other or not?
Throughout both of the picking processes the action broke away momentarily as Anna Richardson in prerecorded graphic clips, told us about some utterly useless statistic or bit of information regarding sex and dating. For example, there was one about how if you have over one hundred moles on your body then it makes you appear seven years younger. Another one was how symmetrical faces in men is linked to good quality sperm, and a third one was how having lots of pubic hair can lead to greater arousal in your sexual partner. WHO CARES ABOUT KNOWING STUFF LIKE THIS??? Such segments were undoubtedly there to break the action up(the long drawn out boobs and bits elimination process). I also wonder if it was an attempt to try and rise the tone of the programme with a bit of science, barmy and failed idea if this was the case though.
There was so much awful dialogue throughout the show that some did make me chuckle in my despair. For example, in the intro VT stuff where Mal identified herself she said the following(straight faced),
"Guys originally see me as a bit of a fantasy".
This was then followed by a good mate of hers revealing to us how she had no idea how Mal was still single. I reckon this very modest (NOT) statement by Mal might just be a rather big clue as to why she had been single for the last three years.
We had utter garbage spoken by the eliminated contestants about how what a great experience taking part in the show had been..........REALLY??? We had the first guy eliminated say how it had been "an empowering experience". For me, it felt like the producers fully suspected what enormous flak would be coming their way after the first episode aired, so they better then have the contestants spouting afterwards how brilliant it had been to have been part of such a new social experiment. My highlight(in a bad way) of the show was when Laura(the fifth person to be eliminated by Mal) said the following,
"I definitely feel like I've achieved something massive here".
I nearly fell off my chair upon hearing this comment because how can going into a television studio and taking your kit off in front of a bunch of strangers, EVER be deemed as a massive achievement for crying out loud??? It must have taken some guts don't get me wrong but to describe it as "MASSIVE", blimey I nearly choked on my beans on toast as I heard her utter those words.
On a more serious note, the show can quite rightly be criticised for giving out mixed messages regarding body image. Anna at the start of the show said, "every naked body is a wonderful thing". This was later supported by a female contestant saying how, 'we all come in different shapes and sizes and so it's all good'. These views are fine but then they go against the format of the show which eliminates contestants due to the state of their naked bodies. The fact people are being judged in a pecking order on their naked bodies means really that only the bodies of the winners are being celebrated, i.e the people that got eliminated, some of their bodies were not seen as being wonderful.
At the start of the show Anna Richardson said,
"In this dating show we go back to basics and start where a good date often ends....naked".
I have big issues with this statement. It sums people up like we just go around behaving like dogs on heat. People can go on great dates with people without then jumping into bed with them at the end. A wider but connected criticism to add here, is that this show never once mentioned other factors that are important when trying to find a partner. For instance, a shared intelligence and sense of humour are massive factors for a lot of people when looking for somebody to date. Physical attraction is important however it is far from being the ONLY factor like this show made out it was.
Perhaps this show might be enjoyed by late teenagers who are randy non-stop with raging hormones, but this late thirty something year old man writing this hated it(guessing you've probably realised that by now). It was not funny and certainly was not some kind of great new social experiment that the show hinted itself to be at times. It was the worst and most bizarre piece of television that I have seen in years.......NEVER AGAIN for me! 1/5.