Trisha!

So I promised that I would blog about my trip to London. Sorry about the lack of pictures but I've been going to London for so long that I just don't take pictures anymore, plus I don't have a digital camera apart from those cheap ones that you can buy in the drug store. Normally, when I'm in London, if I take pictures it's when I'm out in the countryside exploring other parts of England but I stuck to London this time mainly because of weather and there were so many people that I wanted to see.

However, I did take a trip outside London to Maidstone to watch a taping of the Trisha Goddard show. Trisha Goddard is sort of the British equivalent of Oprah mixed with a little Sally Jessy Raphael. What I mean by that is that she's genuinely interested in helping people like Oprah but her shows tend to be more sensationalistic like Oprah's used to be before she decided to use her power for good rather than evil.

Trisha is a celebrity in the UK, and you have to remember that aren't that many black celebrities in Britain. Although she's English, her career actually started in Australia where again she was one of the few non-whites on television. Seriously, they didn't even have an aboriginal newscaster until several years ago.

What makes Trisha different from say Sharon Osbourne who also has a chat show in Britain (she just took the one she was doing here and transported the whole set to the UK), is that she has a degree in conflict resolution.

The reason why I traipsed out to Maidstone at the early hour of 9 in the morning is because my friend Chip has a friend who directs the show, and he invited us to come watch the taping of the last two shows of the week. Apparently they tape all five shows in two days. When we got there we checked in and got our lovely badges, and then were whisked backstage to the production book where J was getting ready to direct the first episode. We watched themtape the intros for the show.

I wasn't sure what to expect and I thought the first show was going to go in a completely different direction than it did. Trisha's first guest was this skank who masqueraded as a journalist named Tara who had a six week relationship with the head of the Crystal Palace FC. After he dumped her, she sent him threatening emails, sometimes up to 200 a day. Then Tara came out on stage in a strapless gingham sundress, dark fishnets and yellow sandals, posing madly. It turns out that she deliberately harassed this guy, hoping that she would be arrested. At first she claimed it was because she wanted the world to know what a bully he was, but then it turned out that she had really done it for the publicity. What, there were no reality shows casting at the time?

So after that, I expected more guests who were similar but the next guest was a man who's son had died in this entertainer Michael Barrymore's swimming pool 5 years ago. The poor man still hasn't gotten closure over his son's death. His health has been ruined, his long-term girlfriend has left him. His only support is his younger son. It was so sad.

The other segments included a lesbian couple who wanted to change the laws on assisted suicide (one of the women has the gene for Huntington's disease, and she's already seen other relatives die of the disease), and a woman who had been abused in a group home as a child, who hadn't told her boyfriend about the abuse until she was called to give testimony at the abuser's trial.

We sat in the audience for this one, and I was even planning on asking a question. I raised my hand and everything but didn't get picked. Darn! For the second show (about people who abuse themselves) Chip and I sat up in the book watching J direct. That was fascinating. Although for one of the promos they filmed, they had this poor woman who was overweight sitting in front of two huge plates of sandwiches and cake to introduce the fact that she was an overeater.

Afterwards, J told us that they have a hard time getting guests for the show sometimes. It seems that Brits aren't as eager to share their dirty laundry as Americans. I noticed that Trisha didn't probe too deep with any of the guests. Totally different than here where if you don't share, you don't get on the show. And where they ambush you regularly on certain shows like Jerry Springer and Maury.

Thanks for reading!

EKM

P.S. Blogger is giving me fits again with the picture thing.