ITV blasted over 'insensitive' Keeping Up With
The Aristocrats series 'Absolute joke'
ITV viewers have blasted the channel over their timing
as they aired three-part series, Keeping Up With The Aristocrats, which takes a
look inside Britain's most prominent aristocratic dynasties.
By LAUREN
WILLIAMS
22:26, Mon,
Jan 17, 2022 | UPDATED: 14:21, Tue, Jan 18, 2022
The series
includes Lord Ivar Mountbatten and his husband James Coyle, Lord and Lady
Fitzalan-Howard, Princess Olga Romanoff, and many others. However, ITV viewers
slammed the show as many felt it was "insensitive" after so many
people had struggled throughout the pandemic. A recent rise in taxes and
utilities also meant some felt it was not appropriate to see aristocrats moan
about being unable to afford a groundskeeper.
Episode one
of the series saw Lord Ivar Mountbatten and husband James prepare to hold an
evening of fine dining with Michelin star chef Jean-Christophe Novelli.
Meanwhile,
Princess Olga was on a mission to find herself a new boyfriend after recruiting
the help of her daughter and gay best friend.
She gave a
very distinct description of what type of man she was looking for, revealing
her mother wanted her to end up with Prince Charles, but she fancied Prince Philip
more.
The couple
explained they hope to flog bottles of wine from their vineyard for £20 a pop
to help cover the upkeep of their home.
Viewers
also got an insight to how much they pay in heating and electricity bills, with
the pair trying to find cheaper and alternative ways to heat their manor.
Despite the
light-hearted intentions of the show, fans were annoyed and upset with ITV over
the “insensitive” timing with many insisting it wasn't appropriate given how
many people are struggling with the cost of living in the UK.
Taking to
Twitter to comment, @JillHudson21 wrote: “They’re bleating on about not having
enough money? Are they serious!”
@Miss_appropriat
commented: “Poor choice of @ITV to be airing this with so many people worrying
about how they’ll afford the rise in bills.
“At least
we should be grateful they didn’t schedule it immediately after #MartinLewis
money show! #keepingupwiththearistocats.”
@Rng88991
said: “#keepingupwiththearistocrats rub it in for the poor and the COVID his –
how the other half live!”
@Lesanrachanbern
added: “When bills are rocketing, poverty increasing, and people struggling,
@ITV see it fit to show how the other half live, bit insensitive.”
Keeping Up With the Aristocrats review – as
ludicrous as a real-life Downton Abbey
How will they survive with only 72 priceless
paintings? And why are trained killers such bad boyfriends? Lose yourself in
the absurdly laughable dilemmas of these aristos
Lucy Mangan
@LucyMangan
Mon 17 Jan
2022 22.00 GMT
I think we
are probably supposed to express bafflement that there is still an audience for
shows such as Keeping Up With the Aristocrats (ITV), in which we are promised,
explicitly and without irony, “exclusive access” to “Britain’s most prominent
dynasties”. To bewail the fact that the thought of seeing how the 0.1% live who
were in the right place at the right time when William the Conqueror came to
town still has us in its thrall. And to ponder whether the continuing reduction
of the nation – its democracy, economy, cultural life, morality – to rubble at
the hands of the elite (aristocracy-allied even when they’re not actually
aristos) will ever curb the appetite for watching them in their natural,
heavily pargeted habitats.
But
television viewing is a complex business. You can keep up with the aristocrats
for an hour in much the same way as you watch Bridgerton or Downton Abbey. Pure
escapism – what would it be like to have won life’s lottery and spend your days
wandering round a Georgian mansion being a second cousin of Prince Charles
(like Lord Ivar Mountbatten) or the 400-year-old, 126-room sprawl of Carlton
Towers like Lord Gerald Fitzalan-Howard (brother of the Duke of Norfolk and
related to most of the people you read about in Philippa Gregory novels). “I’m
always full of ideas,” he says. “Some good. Some just completely rubbish.”
And just
who would not want to be Princess Olga Romanoff? Yes, one of the Romanovs,
whose great uncle was the Tsar, murdered in 1918 by the Bolsheviks. The
surviving family was scooped up by King George and put into Provender House in
Kent, a 13th-century mansion Olga grew up in and still lives in. She is single,
has a gay best friend to keep her company, and the Royal Windsor Horse Show to
keep her entertained. She occasionally contemplates getting a boyfriend but
says “I like the SAS type. A trained killer with a good body. But generally they
turn out to be complete shits.” This, children, is what’s known as being in the
very prime of life.
Or you
could be swanning round a 17th-century pile with 500 acres and a vineyard, like
Alexandra Sitwell and her husband Rick. Though he is the kind of man who
reckons the greatest crime in life is “to be boring” and wears loud shirts and
coloured glasses in an apparent attempt to prove himself otherwise, so I think
we can infer Alexandra does have her own problems. I’d recommend a lot of long
walks alone around that 500 acres if I were you, pet, and a deal of steady,
secret drinking from the vineyard. Or go and have a word with Princess Olga.
She’ll see you right.
We are sliding,
already, into the second type of viewing – the hatewatch. There’s simply
nothing like watching a bunch of people braying about their suffering (“If we
sell a Titian, we’ll only have 72 Titians left! What am I supposed to look at?
The Vermeers?”) to feel the cleansing fire of a hatred that harms no one.
The third
kind is liberation viewing. To watch Lord Mountbatten and his husband James
stress about finding enough tablecloth underlays to equip the one-night-only,
£165-a-head pop-up restaurant they have hired Jean-Christophe Novelli to
preside over is to know 27 types of catharsis at once, followed by a deep, deep
peace. “I could not,” you think serenely, gazing into the middle distance from
the sofa, “care less. Let the whole thing fail. Let them eat Greggs. It would
matter – unlike almost everything else in this burning hellscape of a world –
not one jot.”
In these
absurd offerings, however, there is always at least one protrusion that snags
your attention and leaves you wanting more. In this case, it is Dave, butler to
Alexandra and Rick. Dave’s father, he tells us, was a pig farmer. His job,
according to him, is the same thing. “You feed ’em when they’re hungry and
clean up their mess.” I will take a 90-minute special on Dave and his dad as
soon as you’re ready, ITV.
Keeping Up With The Aristocrats
Series overview
Brand new
three-part series. In this
light-hearted, endearing and eye-opening series, four of Britain’s most
prominent aristocratic dynasties have given cameras exclusive access to reveal
what really goes on behind their closed doors, over one summer’s social
season. Asset-rich, but often cash
strapped, this posh bunch are mischievously self-deprecating and jolly. This
fun and intriguing series lifts the lid on the lives of absolutely fabulous
Lords, Ladies, and even the odd Princess, as they try to earn a crust.
Episode 1
In this
opening episode, Lord Ivar Mountbatten and husband James gamble their
reputation, and that of Michelin-starred chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, by
hosting their first ever pop-up restaurant at their stately home of Bridwell.
But with tickets costing a whopping £165 per head, can the Mountbattens sate
the appetite of 50 fine diners? They include Lord Ivar’s cousin, Princess Olga
Romanoff, who, currently single, is hunting down her idea type of man – ‘a
trained killer’ no less...
Meanwhile,
Lord and Lady Fitzalan-Howard are hoping to help fund the exorbitant running
costs of their 126-room home, the imposing Carlton Towers, by turning part of
their 3,000-acre estate into a vineyard.
And having bottled their very first bottle of sparkling wine, they seek
advice from their friends, Alexandra Sitwell and husband Rick, who already own
one the UK’s most successful vineyards at the stunning Renishaw Hall. Will the
Fitzalan-Howards wine prove to be vintage, or just another sad bottle of plonk?
https://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1week3/keeping-aristocrats
.webp)
No comments:
Post a Comment