The beauty of writing for Stink of Shoe Polish is that we don’t have the hindrance of product placement.
A half-page colour advertisement in one of our competitors yields a full-page eulogy or it does if your name is Damon Rochefort.
It is a delicious irony, therefore, that the said freebie has gone off half cock in the printing process; the last four
paragraphs being unintelligible, pretty much like the show – Damon Rochefort Tonight (BBC Wales, Thursdays
@ 11pm) that it is plugging.
The Western Mail’s magazine proclaims Mr Rochefort a ‘cult’ and I would certainly agree with at least three
of those letters.
Unfortunately, Damon Rochefort doesn’t have the urbanity to be another Simon Fanshawe, nor the cuddliness
of a Graham Norton, nor the in your faceness of Dale Winton. He is trying to build the show on the cult of
personality but when the personality is of the puff adder, Beau Brummel kind you are bound to be on to a loser.
Rochefort claims that the programme is more performance than chat show. Anybody who caught the first instalment
of ‘…Tonight’ and witnessed the travesty of an encounter that was sad has-been Ken Morley meets sad would be
Rochefort would have to admit that theirs was the kind of performance art that would not even merit an Arts Council
grant.
The fact of the matter is that this show is one step beyond Rochefort and by the time that you read this the
commissioning editor at BBC Wales might well have pulled the plug on the show and consigned it to the dustbin
of history. If not, Damon, don’t blame the show on Yuri Geller (Rochefort’s earpiece mysteriously malfunctioned
on the first show). If you are going to front a chat show spend some time researching your questions, listen to the
answers and take the conversation somewhere.
The whole ragbag that is ‘…Tonight’ can’t be blamed entirely on Damon Rochefort, the production company
Avanti and BBC Wales must share some of the blame. BBC Wales already has a perfectly serviceable chat
show fronted by Jamie Owen so why does it need another? Presumably to target a young hip audience and
show that it can take chances. Sadly against a show like ‘So Graham Norton’, ‘…Tonight’ merely looks passé.
Avanti have missed a golden opportunity. Not only have they fallen into the ‘style over substance’ trap, they have
also managed to produce a set that is absolutely not audience friendly. Forty or fifty of the audience cram onto
sofas whilst the bulk of the onlookers are squeezed into the corners of the studio. The much-heralded ‘Lift’, a
means of introducing guests, had been virtually abandoned by show three. No surprise when the walk from the
lift to Damon’s desk was longer than the applause most ‘B’ list celebs could muster. And finally, why has Avanti
allowed its most valuable commodity – La Rochefort- to be so under produced? Surely it would have been worth
spending a few grand recruiting an executive producer with a track record, simmer for a few weeks, and gradually
bring Damon to the boil. What we have at the moment is popcorn, made in haste…and it has made a mess of the kitchen.
Was there anything to like? Actually, there was; I thought that Ocean Colour Scene on show one were brill. Perhaps BBC Wales
should give them their own show. It won’t happen though, they haven’t had a number one hit; what chat show host has?
Damon Rochefort? You’re kidding. I was thinking of Terry Wogan and the Floral Dance.
