The gc.....

Many, many (far too many) column inches have already been dedicated to self-styled The GC: aka Gemma Collins, formerly of TOWIE, now of 'any bloody programme that seems to be on the telly.' She must almost have the full house of 'Celebrity...' type shows, having done Masterchef, which I wrote about here www.rantsreviewsreflect.co.uk/reviews/celebrity-masterchef-the-wall
Dancing on Ice, The Crystal Maze and probably a whole lot more I've thankfully avoided.

Now Diva Forever is (dis)gracing our screens, where we follow GC round her clothes shop, her various engagements, and most awkwardly, with her fellow Weeble, boyfriend Arg. I think she and Arg are no longer an item. Lucky I hadn't bought a hat.

There is a small (quite small) part of me that feels a grudging admiration for a woman who doesn't forever downplay her abilities and kowtow to men. Sadly, the abilities are questionable and the men fairly hapless, so it's a back-handed compliment. Mostly what comes across is eye-watering arrogance and an unshakeable belief in her uniqueness. Hell, we're all unique, love. Or are there indeed two Gemmas? My son watched a bit of it with me and asked 'who's that?' 'That' was Gemma without her make-up on.

The only genuinely interesting moment in Episode 1 was when she revealed in a live interview that she'd voted to leave the EU, only to confess afterwards this was a lie. Annoyingly, we're not told if she voted the other way, or most likely, didn't bother voting at all. For most of the hour (it was a LONG hour), I felt like a inverse Chinese nodding cat, I kept shaking my head at the audacity of it all.

And the titles sequence! Which she was several hours late to the filming of, then stomped about crossly as if it was someone else's fault. The resulting sequence shows our GC in sparkly outfits preening in front of a star-filled background, while a voice croons in the background about how fabulous she is. Shake, shake, shake...