Last Night's Viewing: Secret Interview, Channel 5
Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies, BBC4

 

Suggested Topics

Take two (fame) hungry young cooks, add cameras to the mix and combine with a hefty dollop of subterfuge. Turn up the heat – and the pressure – by adding a Michelin-starred chef, a sprinkling of actors and finish with a surprise ending. If you've followed this recipe to the letter you'll end up with the first episode of Secret Interview, a show where unwitting professionals compete for a "dream job" with an "inspirational" new boss.

The twist is that the would-be dream-job seekers don't know that they're competing – they think they're being filmed for a documentary, when instead they are being scrutinised by a leading industry figure. At the end of a week and after completing four tests, the one who has been most successful in their secret "interview" is offered a position by said figure.

Jason Atherton was the name this week, while following episodes will see Glamour's editor, Jo Elvin, judge fashion-promo organisers, Nicky Clarke size up hairdressers and "property tycoon" Kevin Green (me neither) assess estate agents. So far, so MasterChef meets Candid Camera meets Punk'd meets The Apprentice. The result made for compelling – if often uncomfortable – viewing. Young chefs Rob (from a restaurant in Bexleyheath) and Richard (from a posh pub in Bath) had to put up with heavy-handed actors throwing them curveballs. Think pretend apprentices who don't know their spatulas from their whisks, ersatz restaurant critics scribbling in notebooks, difficult customers and inept waitresses – all while Big Brother Jason is watching from afar. There was swearing (from the chefs), wincing (from Atherton, who tried for the intensity of Michel Roux Jnr but didn't have the madness about the eyes) and cringing (from me, behind my fingers).

It was quite a confection and it didn't always go down smoothly. Why these two particular chefs? The programme-makers had, apparently, "sifted through the UK and shortlisted two outstanding culinary candidates". Sounds rather undercooked to me. Why was Michelin-starred Atherton involved? To find "the best of the best". Not to raise his media profile like a successful soufflé. Oh no. But for all the lumps, by the time the contestants were summoned to Atherton's Pollen Street Social after their trials by fire, it was hard not to care who got the top spot. Because despite their initial bish bash bosh sound bites – Rob's "these bananas are the bollocks" and Richard's wish to make food that will "spank your tastebuds" – you found yourself rooting for these young men, despite the dishonest and often unappetising premise.

Speaking of chaps in their prime, the daring young men in their flying machines that appeared in Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies were almost as impressive as the aircraft that they piloted. As James Hamilton-Paterson, author of Empire of the Clouds, said at the start of this thrilling documentary about Britain's post-war supremacy in military aviation, "It was glamour! Sheer damn glamour". Despite austerity and a country that was blitzed, bombed and poor, the decades between the 1940s and the 1960s were a golden age of engineering – and a golden age of Britain and bravery long gone. The test pilots who flew the first jets, in the words of one of the show's talking heads, "were household heroes – the F1 drivers of their day".

Jet! gracefully charted the heights to which engineering climbed in the form of the V-bombers and the all-conquering Harrier Jump Jet, as well as the nosedives – when the Government sold its Rolls-Royce engines to the Soviet Union, which used them in its Migs, to cuts to the once-sacrosanct RAF. It also celebrated the quiet professionalism of pilots who flew aircraft without ejector seats and, during the 1950s, were responsible for the nuclear weapons their planes carried. Without, I note, the lure of a documentary about their prowess to tempt them. It's a long-gone Britain.

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Arts & Ents blogs

Question Time with Mathew Jonson

Mathew Jonson has been a hero of mine for quite some time now. His timeless piece, Marionette, was o...

Something For The Weekend in London: May 24-26

We love London for its multiculturalism, so we’re all about that cross-cultural life this weekend by...

Owen Howells: From the UK to Australia and back again (and again!)

Owen Howells is a DJ/producer who grew up in Australia but was born in the UK. He came back to the U...

       
Independent
Travel Shop
Imperial Cities of Morocco
Seven nights half-board from only £799pp Find out more
Historic Sicily
Seven nights half-board from £799pp Find out more
4* all-inclusive Crete
Seven nights from only £399pp Find out more

ES Rentals

    Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

    Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

    In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
    Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

    Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

    Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
    Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

    Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

    She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
    Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

    Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

    The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
    Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

    Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

    The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
    'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

    Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

    The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
    Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

    Written on the body

    Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
    Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

    Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

    The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
    A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

    Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

    The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
    Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

    Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

    A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
    Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

    Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

    Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
    Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

    Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

    You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
    The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

    The Calvin report

    Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
    10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

    10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

    Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
    The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

    The Last Word

    Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally