Liberty of London, Channel 4, TV review: Even Pharrell Williams' new fragrance and a bit of bondage can't give this show the X Factor

Despite producers' best efforts, there was no real drama at the department store

All over the shop: ‘Liberty of London’ (Phil Fisk/Channel 4 images)

Trainee journalists are taught to question feature ideas with simple questions: “So what?” and “Why now?”.

The recommissioned fly-on-the-wall documentary Liberty of London (Channel 4) is enjoyable enough. But I’m not sure anyone behind it would have those answers.

You can imagine the pitch for the first episode in this second series: Dynamic American managing director of the most British of British department stores fronts a day to find new home-grown talent. Like Dragons’ Den meets The X Factor. And the producers tried hard to make it like the latter. We met the hopefuls queuing for a chance to face the judging panel headed up by MD Ed Burstell.

We heard about their journeys (from Essex to London that morning, rather than The X Factor’s favoured metaphorical ones) and saw them present their pitches for a chance to get their wares stocked in store. In: scented nail polish. Out (after a pop-up shop trial): rain macs for dogs. The flaw in the format? The judges weren’t mean enough. “You lose the pattern,” said Ed, scrutinising some scarves. Did we care? Not really.

Elsewhere, was new visual merchandiser manager Liz Silvester’s first big test: windows. Sport was the theme but it was hard to separate the stuff for sale from the conceptual bit. “I’m a relatively smart person and I only got one of the references,” said Ed. Shoppers seemed confused too. From the gymnastics window, one came up with “creation”.

In a bid to redeem herself, it was then literally scarves at dawn for Liz as she was tasked with revamping the store’s must famous room. At 5am she was strapping up mannequins with what looked like Liberty-themed bondage gear. Ed loved it, though. Goodbye, eviction opportunity.

At last, in the final minutes, came a flashbulb moment. Music super-producer Pharrell rocked up to promote his new fragrance. He came, behatted, proclaimed the scarf bondage “cool” and discussed his new scent. “Fragrance for me is paint for the nose, the people that make fragrances, the air is their canvas.” He might have sounded like a deluded thesp, but there was no drama here, despite the producers’ best efforts.