 Print this page |
TV PREVIEWS
My Wall Street, Thursday 9pm, Channel 4 
|
In case you hadn’t heard, we’re in the middle of a recession. But one thing which isn’t feeling the pinch at the moment is the new phenomenon of Credit Crunch TV.
Whether it’s Kirsty Allsop discovering a penchant for crafting soft furnishings from old washing-up bottles or the BBC commissioning a hundred or so “gritty dramas” in preparation for its autumn “Recession Series”, you can barely brush the remote at the moment without finding a reference to the economy crowbarred into every available nook or cranny.
Oh, and here’s another. After presumably bashing “Skid Row”, “Dead End Street” and “S*** Creek” into Google Maps several times and getting zero results returned, the chaps at Channel 4 eventually settled on Wall Street, of which the UK boasts a respectable 23, although naturally none of them are inhabited by bellowing red-faced Americans in funny-coloured jackets.
Instead we get to meet the likes of Ali and Siara from Wolverhampton. Ali’s been for an eye-watering 30 interviews in a fortnight without any success, although one has to question the impact of taking a Channel 4 film crew along to film you telling prospective bosses where you see yourself in five years’ time. Oh, and in case you’re reading, Ali – telling a future employer you haven’t got a CV because you’ve “been a bit lazy” isn’t an amazing idea either.
There’s also Clayton and Lisa, from Ebbw Vale, an affable trucker who tells the camera he’d be prepared to cut down to three days a week to keep his job but by the end of film tragically loses it entirely. Oh, and Nigel, who’s having his house repossessed, and a loanshark granny, and Paul in Grimsby, who’s penniless but stubbornly unprepared to sell off the collection of boxed Star Wars goodies worth £10,000 currently occupying the spare bedroom.
Oh, and there are at least 20 other people too, and therein lies the problem. Although undoubtedly some moving, poignant stories are on offer here, they’re all dealt with in a whiplash-inducing channel-surfing way which means we never get more than a few minutes at a time on any particular Wall Street, and one can’t help feeling that focusing on three or four of the people featured would’ve been a lot more effective.
by Stewart Turner, Tuesday 28 April 2009
