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.
The Savoy, just to deal with the nuts and bolts, follows a reasonably well-known hotel through a minor brand refurb. The premises closed three years ago and, having let the decorators in, reopened in October. The new owners spent £800,000 tarting up each room. The Savoy has a lot of rooms. Which it wishes to fill. Hence this two-part advertorial hosted by ITV which doesn’t ask any awkward journalistic questions about, just for starters, the year’s delay in completion or the breathtaking vulgarity of the River Room’s new leopard-print carpet.
Other than that, you already know the story. Remember the one about the airport or the department store or the supermarket chain or the other hotel? They've got the same people working at the Savoy. The dramatis personae are such fossilised archetypes that they might as well come from commedia dell’arte. Only without the commedia. Or the arte. “You have my promise that the Savoy will reopen once again,” said Kieron in a stirring oration to the 600 staff as the old hotel closed, before laying off every man Jack of them. He's in the role of the harried and humourless boss prowling the corridors like Dracula in off-the-peg tailoring. Then there is head butler/panto dame Sean, whose lifetime in brown-nosing includes service in all of Europe’s royal houses. “You will be the wind beneath the guests’ wings,” he informed his team of trainee butlers. I kept looking out for his feather boa and nipple clamps.
From the rougher end of the casting coach, in the role of the blue-collar type with a salty regional accent, meet hard-hatted cockney site manager John. “We will ‘it target,” he pledged as his gang planed walls to receive priceless flock wallpaper. “I’ll do me fuckin’ best to make sure it gets done.” Nice one, son. His surname’s Ferrari. No relation, I fear.
“With only six weeks to go...” The other signature of the docusoap was a Tourettes-flavoured commitment to the nakedly faked-up cliffhanger. “In just a matter of days...” The Savoy voiceover wearily counted down to lift-off. “I need those keys,” hissed Kieron on the night the builders were due to sign off. “I want those keys.” If only he'd watched enough docusoap, he'd know that he'd be getting them straight after the commercial break. Along with a recap of the entire plot so far.
Thus is the opium doled out. What The Savoy offers is classic deference porn. It’s Downton Abbey minus input from RADA (apart from His Grace Hugh Bonneville who was reading out the script). For all the sneaky references to new Old Masters, the programme was far too obsequious to let the subjects hang themselves the way an old-school documentary would. Give them enough rope, they’ll section off a VIP area and cram it with silicone. The place is run by Canadians now, of which one need say no more. A roly-poly figure called Clarence jetted over from Toronto to introduce new and returning staff to team-bonding psychobabble. “I am Savoy!” they were required to holler in unison, which’ll set dear old Noël C spinning even faster than Lord Reith.
In next week’s episode – we’ve been vouchsafed a sneak preview - the staff are going to clap Stephen Fry through the front door looking, with a true sense of occasion, as if he’s just kipped under a Norfolk hedgerow (pictured above with Sean the head butler). Now that is proper Englishness: all shabby charm and endearing rumples. A bit like the place they’ve just spent north of £100 million erasing.
