I love writing columns.
It’s genunine pleasure to be a columnist for Eastern Daily Press, I love the freedom to go on flights of fancy that these pieces give me…
“In the past people became ‘celebrities’ as a by-product of something else. They were great singers, actors, dancers etc. and, as a result of that talent, they were celebrated. This (to me) seemed a logical route to stardom. Yet, for some reason, a while back, the idea of putting people who were actually talented on the telly was ditched in favour of giving airtime to people, famous for being famous, that have no discernible skill or talent.
Chris McGuire, Eastern Daily Press – “Listen up TV people – can we please stop with the whole celeb thing?”
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people being no good at something – I’m rubbish at lots (and lots) of things. My issue is watching a celebrity being rubbish at something doesn’t make for great TV.
You can almost hear the production meetings on these shows where producers, lumbered with the latest egomaniac from TOWIE (or the like) frantically search for something that they can have the celeb do in front of the camera that might be vaguely entertaining. The answer tends to be walking the celeb (zombie-like) through a painfully contrived game followed by the opportunity for the ‘star’ to talk at length about themselves, their ‘journey’ and how fascinating they are. Yawn.
Telly commissioners, call me wildly unrealistic, but do you think it would be possible to have a show that didn’t require Duncan from Blue or Gemma Collins to be wheeled out for no apparent reason? We’ve heard all they have to say before – and frankly it didn’t take long.”
My writing covers a wide breadth of subjects, from family life to topical opinion.
It also tends to include photos of me, often in Lycra, for which I apologise.
Chris McGuire: Writer 