Alex Polizzi - The Fixer, BBC Two

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The arts are in a bit of a state just now. Okay, we all knew that. The money that was there in the past - and where it was coming from - just isn’t the same any more. Finding a new way of doing things is the buzz. Looking outside the box.

Maybe someone should call in Alex Polizzi, who’s just begun series two of The Fixer, the family business first-aid programme that aims to turn around enterprises hovering on the edge of financial disaster (amazing, given current times, that some are still hovering at all). Tolstoy was not wrong - unhappy families sure have something special about them, and Britain’s chicest hotelier gets to play psychologist as much as business adviser.

Last night’s episod, Peachy Pics, homed in on a mother-and-daughters photography studio, a recent start-up to boot (always riskier, unlike last week’s east London curtain-makers who’d been going almost a century). Hard to call the show a state-of-the-nation project though, even if Aylesbury is the lowest income town in the home counties. And business ideas that stem from the desire to work with your nearest and dearest (until you actually start working with them, that is), putting up the life savings in the process, must be among the trickiest out there.

The result's not unlike affectionate sadism (or is that masochism?), and that can’t be bad for viewing figures

The thing going for mother Andrea, or Andie, Lane and daughter Rachel was that at least they could take a respectable portrait picture. The other two, Emma and Nicky, looked like (and almost admitted) they were competing for the least competent manager award. In Polizzi’s words, they had to get off their bottoms and do something (you know she’s up against a tricky case when Polizzi herself gets bleeped - this time it was Nicky bagging that role).

The weapons this make-over instructress prefers are a generous laugh, quite enough to keep the serotonins flowing, with a sort of matronly directness - posh vernacular, you might call it. And a seemingly inexhaustible rolodex of contacts ready to give their advice for free. Some involve a bit of a baptism of fire: when she was plunged into the studio of a London glamour photographer, poor Andrea could hardly keep her finger steady on the shutter for nerves. The result's not unlike affectionate sadism (or is that masochism?), and that can’t be bad for viewing figures.

Last night’s wished-for happy ending was postponed: Peachy Pics had changed its name like the branders suggested, risked it all on a lease on posh new premises, and discovered there was commercial photography out there, too. But no closure though, because of wiring problems beyond even the producers' control. More ominously, one of the daughters was out of the picture for most of the second half. Was there more strife than we were seeing?

Polizzi herself is a natural. If BBC Two ever decides to put her out to pasture (or when the branding agencies just stop returning her calls), she’d give some of the presenting faces over on BBC Four a decent run for their money. Perhaps that’s an outfit that could do with her help behind the scenes too.

Comments

I thought that there was a lot of real pain here. And wondered a couple of things at least. Does Alex (or the BBC people behind her) ever feel deeply uncomfortable once they get into a project like this? Do they ever consider scrapping it (equally, do the participants have the right to pull out/scrap it)? I haven't seen all the last series, but last week's episode seemed jolly by comparison - yes, the business was losing a few thousand a month, but all the family members (and their extended families) seemed to be getting along just okay. With Andie and her daughters, we never saw any extended family. The background that Andie had set up the business after surviving cancer was equally emotionally deep. She was so nervous in that celeb photography studio she was shaking, poor thing. And then breaking down in tears later, not sure she could keep things (herself) going. Tears may bring great viewer ratings, but really - is there a limit? Okay, the family savings that were being eaten up looked pretty extensive, so they weren't going to end up on the street (unlike some other small business collapses might do). But what Alex should really have said to them all, when it was patently obvious that at least one salary had to go was - LET NICKY GO! Nicky wasn't happy there, but wasn't taking any initiative to change things. The psychology of trying to make things good for your family is quite understandable, but surely Alex should have said - NICKY WOULD DO BETTER FOR HERSELF, AND ALL OF YOU, IF SHE FINDS ANOTHER JOB SOMEWHERE ELSE, GETS MORE OF HER OWN LIFE. That would have been painful to listen to, as well - but would it have been more honest, Alex? Can you really just SWITCH OFF when you drive away the last time? It left me uncomfortable, and worried that NIcky's absence from the second half of the film was a sign of something deeper wrong that we weren't be told about. Did anyone else feel that, I wonder?

Polizzi's pronunciation of 'schedule' was a bit of kick in the nuts. Is she uneducated or would she prefer to be American?

I enjoy this series,even though it sometimes makes stressful watching.Alex seems to be a person with common sense and drive.Nice to see a positive result at the end of a programme,for a change.