TV Review Fionola Meredith Garden makeover shows normally rely on the "ta-da!" moment when that barren patch of half-dead grass, last seen adorned with a couple of rusting toddler trikes and a wheelie bin, is suddenly transformed into a lush, tasteful urban oasis. Cue sighs of amazement and happiness from the delighted owners, who immediately invite all their friends over for a big showing-off session, while smugly quaffing Chardonnay beside the new water feature.
But RTÉ1's new gardening show, I Want a Garden, contains a cunning twist on the familiar set-up. Yes, we've still got the ubiquitous "celebrity gardener", that smouldering sex-bomb Diarmuid Gavin. But this time, the family not only stump up the cash for the makeover, they do all the hard work, so Diarmuid doesn't have to. So there's no opportunity for that glorious climactic moment when the owners open the garden gate and weep with joy. They're more likely to be weeping with exhaustion, having slogged for three long weeks to create the ruddy thing.
Diarmuid's job is to design the garden, then hand the blueprint over to the owners, who must translate his pencil-sketched plans into reality. This allows for plenty of moody, lingering shots of Diarmuid getting all creative and intense over the design, running his fingers through his curly Byronic hair, while sipping a cappuccino in a trendy cafe. But note that tomato ketchup bottle on the table - that's to show Diarmuid is a real man, full of brawn and vigour, not a big girl's blouse - even though he favours pink shirts unbuttoned to the navel. Nice touch.
First up to have their dowdy plot transformed by Diarmuid's horticultural genius were the Duggan family, from Arklow. Emer and Shane had set aside €20,000, and for that they wanted a clean, sharp, contemporary garden, with plenty of architectural planting, and no fuss or frills. Diarmuid duly dropped off the plans, then took off in a white helicopter - that's showbiz, baby! - leaving the Duggans to get on with it. The delightfully nerdy Shane time lavishing attention on the "contemporary granite slabs" ordered by Diarmuid. "Behold!" he announced, holding up one of the little beauties, "800 by 200 by 30!" Er, right, Shane. Whatever floats your boat.
But when Diarmuid popped back briefly to plant up the garden, Shane got a bit past himself and jokingly asked if he could include a jolly garden gnome in the design. Bad idea. Diarmuid muttered something surly and unintelligible behind his spade. Shane got a lovely minimalist garden in the end, complete with a touch of decadence: a chandelier-lit shed. But he had learned a valuable lesson. Remember your place - and don't mess with the maestro.
IF THERE'S ONE thing we love even more than a garden makeover show, it's a child makeover show. You know, the ones where they take a nasty little blighter and, by the end of the show, turn him into a dove-voiced little darling. For most parents, these programmes offer welcome relief from the stress, guilt and anxiety involved in bringing up their own children. The dysfunctional behaviour of these mums, dads and kids makes the rest of us (and our children) look good. Very good indeed. It's pure Schadenfreude, visual morphine for our frazzled nerves. The only downside is having to listen to the constant ear-piercing screaming, yelling and whining that forms the soundtrack to these shows - and that's just the parents. Driving Mum and Dad Mad offered more of the same. But unlike quick-fix shows like Supernanny, in which we're asked to believe that the no-nonsense anti-Poppins, Jo Frost, has the magic power to transform one family per episode, the makers of Driving Mum and Dad Mad are awake to the sober truth that teasing out the root causes of bad behaviour is a long, painful process. So they've lined up five struggling families to take part in an eight-week parenting programme (too short? That's forever in tellyland) with child psychologist Claire Halsey.
As is traditional, the class began with a video playback, showing the bad behaviour in all its gory detail. This was scary stuff - young Jamie (seven), threatening his mum with a corkscrew; five-year-old Rio, a compulsive biter, with his guttural, satanic growl; warring twosome Arron (seven) and Bradley (five), whose favoured mode of interaction with his brother is "Arron! Yer bastard!"; and, most sinister of all, Thomas, a three-year-old ginger-haired, nappy-wearing despot, who lisped through his dummy, "I'm gonna kill you. I would!". You actually felt he might, given half a chance. In another age, people might have called this child possessed.
Normally, these programmes are structured around the ritual humiliation of the parents. It's only when they're brought to their knees, forced to face up to the true awfulness of their own behaviour - pathetically giving in to spoilt demands, resorting to desperate shouting - that they are then granted redemption by whichever bossy telly-nanny happens to be running the show. But several of these mums and dads, desperate and defeated though they were, actually laughed when they were confronted with the dreadful on-screen antics of their offspring. Wait, wait, wait, this isn't right. You're supposed to cry and be sorry now, for having raised such foul little monsters. It isn't funny!
These parents almost seemed like children themselves. Hmm. Could that be the problem? Kids raised by kids? Still, Jamie's mum Christine seemed willing to get her sleeves rolled up, and began by getting Jamie and his sister to decorate a rule chart. But what to write on it? "Respect Mum and never give her a black eye," suggested Jamie helpfully. It all ended badly, as you knew it would, in a hail of blue glitter and foul-mouthed screaming. Ah, that's more like it. Just feel your own parental guilt sweetly evaporating.
SOME OF THESE bad little beasts could have done with the iron discipline provided by Colleen McCabe, the former nun turned money-grabbing school principal, played with glorious aplomb by Pauline Quirke in The Thieving Headmistress. McCabe stole thousands from her school to fund a lavish lifestyle, chock-full of fancy jewellery, cars, shoes and trips on the Orient Express, while her pupils shivered in dirty classrooms. The makers of this programme were on to a winner from the start with such a juicy story. Ex-nun goes bad - what's not to like? It certainly gave them the opportunity to trot out a shed-load of rather obvious religious imagery - statues of angels covering their eyes, a board of governors meeting set up like the Last Supper, with McCabe as the central Christ-like figure. Quirke was super in the role, striding bossily down school halls, her rear-end wagging busily, or conferring with her coterie of oleaginous priests. And when she was all undone, exposed as a greedy crook, Quirke was even better, lying stunned and vulnerable in her bed, quivering in her voluminous leopard-print nightie.
But the docu-drama is a ticklish genre. It occupies the hinterland between fiction and fact, seamlessly meshing together truth and interpretation. So you're left feeling slightly disorientated, mentally trying to unpick the tightly-woven fabric of the programme, in an attempt to sort the real from the imaginary. Despite Quirke's bravura performance, the one person missing from The Thieving Headmistress was Colleen McCabe herself. She was an uneasy ghost at the feast, standing invisibly on the sidelines, listening to the programme makers speculate with impunity about her motivations, watching them take her personality and twist it to fit their purposes. You almost felt sorry for this absent crook.
PRESUMABLY, VIEWERS WERE supposed to sympathise with the hapless participants of Excuse My French - low-rent celebs Esther Rantzen, Ron Atkinson and Marcus Brigstocke - as they struggled to learn the lingo deep in rural France. But despite the series of "testing" situations lined up for the trio - arranging a taxi to a country villa; delivering wine and paté to their neighbours - it was hard to feel anything at all about their boring efforts. "Esther has acquired a stamp!" the narrator enthused, and really, that was the highlight of this dull and earnest little show.
You had hopes that Big Ron, known for that infamous racist jibe and his startling lemon trousers, might have made a hilariously stupid gaffe, but even that failed to materialise. He was staying quiet, it turned out, to protect his dignity. Ah well, if nothing else, at least he's learned the value of keeping his mouth shut.