TV Scope:The loud command, "Can we have some professionalism and can we have some peace and quiet now?", isn't particularly offensive until you realise that it was shouted at 15 deaf girls lined up waiting to perform at their worst nightmare, writes Paul O'Doherty.
See Hear - Catwalks and Catfights - Behind the scenes at the Miss Deaf UK
BBC2, Saturday 21st April, 12pm
Add in further amplification and the classic notion that deaf people respond to louder directions and you start to get the picture. Insert distress to their families and the insensitivities of the organisers, celebrity judges and various expert know-alls, as well as the sheer awfulness and out-of-datedness of beauty contests, and what you have is an excellent fly-on-the-wall, cringe-inducing documentary, from BBC's See Hear team. It's one that should be shown in every school, university and seat of learning to stress how not to treat the different in society.
However, to begin with it seemed a good idea and 26-year-old deaf-studies student Nikki Goba was full of good intentions when she envisaged staging the first Miss Deaf UK on a budget of £700 - mostly her own money - in London.
By the finish, she had lost control of her own project and the emphasis had shifted from a worthwhile vehicle for deaf people to an ugly enough affair with a number of twists.
As Goba admitted, she wasn't the greatest of event organisers, but that shouldn't have mattered. Her format was simple - a search for a winner among 15 girls up for a bit of fun and glamour while taking part in the various processes of an interview, talent show and fashion show of evening wear.
Throw in celebrity judges from the deaf community and the winner would go on to represent Britain at Miss Deaf World at Prague in June. Sounds simple.
The difficulties began when Goba got involved with a PR agent, a make-up artist and hair-stylist who all had very professional ideas on how a beauty pageant should be run. Suddenly, the format and the control of the show changed dramatically from a very amateur adventure into a foray down a catwalk of Wisteria Lane-pretensions.
The venue moved twice from a community centre in Camden to, eventually, The Collection, a trendy restaurant in Chelsea.
The judges, all of whom had no experience with sign language or working with the deaf community, were all-hearing and included Liz Fuller (an ex Miss Great Britain), Hoft Golan (ex Miss Teen Israel) and Jonathan Lipman (showbiz manager). The compere, Corin Greenhow, a former model, had similar credentials.
The girls (who in the beginning were doing everything for themselves) weren't allowed to do their own hair or make-up or even wear their expensive ballgowns. They were made wear swimsuits (something they, their friends and parents were rightly appalled by), identical £39.99 cheap-looking dresses and strike a pose practised over lunch in a nearby car park.
And, although many of the tickets had been sold to a male deaf audience looking forward to deaf comedian John Smith, what they got was Bobby Davro leading a bemused audience to a rendition of New York, New York.
However, there was a winner, if that's the right word, and it was Kellie Moody who was delighted with her prize of a modelling contract, magazine shoot and trip to the Czech Republic.
Elsewhere, the reaction was contemptuous with people looking for their money back.
See Hear's editor, Terry Riley, commented to The Irish Times, on See Hear's involvement: "We were interested in why the deaf community should want to host a beauty pageant at a time when they are not necessarily highly regarded. What were they hoping to achieve? However, the story very quickly changed when we started to film preparations for the event and witnessed the clash of cultures between the hearing and deaf worlds.
"Without the fashion professionals the event probably wouldn't ever have happened, but in the course of putting it on, a lot of deaf interests and sensitivities were ignored."