thu 14/11/2024

The Savoy, ITV1 | reviews, news & interviews

The Savoy, ITV1

The Savoy, ITV1

Now they're running ads between commercials: hotel gets docusoaped

'I Am Savoy!' The old place under new management gets a rug rethink

Once upon a time, just before Lord Reith began permanent rotation in his place of rest, there was a hideous botchjob of a television genre known as the docusoap. It wasn’t quite documentary and it wasn’t quite soap. It was scriptless drama with “characters” whose “narrative arcs” were tweaked and massaged into what you'd loosely call "stories" in post-production. The docusoap launched the idea that the public will gladly work on television for sweet Fanny Adams. If there’s one thing you can applaud reality TV for – if there’s just one thing - it’s that it pulled the trigger on the docusoap. So it’s not quite clear what The Savoy is doing on ITV1.

Once upon a time, just before Lord Reith began permanent rotation in his place of rest, there was a hideous botchjob of a television genre known as the docusoap. It wasn’t quite documentary and it wasn’t quite soap. It was scriptless drama with “characters” whose “narrative arcs” were tweaked and massaged into what you'd loosely call "stories" in post-production. The docusoap launched the idea that the public will gladly work on television for sweet Fanny Adams. If there’s one thing you can applaud reality TV for – if there’s just one thing - it’s that it pulled the trigger on the docusoap. So it’s not quite clear what The Savoy is doing on ITV1.

What The Savoy offers is classic deference porn. It’s Downton Abbey minus input from RADA

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