Stacey and Joe
BBC1
Alison Rowat
***
David Beckham has done one, wife Victoria is about to do the same. Harry and Meghan have done a few, and way back when, Ozzy and Sharon - or was it the Kardashians - started the ball rolling.
Now Stacey and Joe are the latest celebrity couple to invite the cameras into their family home. Stacey and Joe who you say? Now, don’t be like that.
Stacey Solomon is the presenter of Sort Your Life Out, the show that helps families clear the clutter from their homes. Sounds like a pile of old Tupperware boxes without lids, but I’m a fan, both of the show and Solomon, a TV natural if ever there was one.
Her other half’s CV includes a stint in EastEnders and presenting an I’m a Celebrity spin-off show, which is where Swash met Solomon. The first thing that hit him was her smell.
“I’ve never smelled nothing like it in all my life,” he says. “I’ve smelled so many people coming out of that jungle and thought ‘They smell a bit pongy’. Stacey was on a different level.”
As the saying goes, Joe doesn’t have much in the way of a filter. And his life with Solomon is full-on, with five kids, four ducks, two careers and two dogs to look after, Which makes you wonder why they said yes to the cameras coming into their (lovely) Essex home.
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There is a lot of trust involved in a venture like this. I can’t imagine this pair keeping a close eye on everything in the way of starrier sorts with a bigger entourage than Grandpa Dave (chief child-minder - they don’t have a nanny) and Stacey’s brother.
Could it be that Solomon saw a chance to get her “brand” out to more people? She already designs clothes and homewares, and we see her here putting her name to a perfume.
But if that’s the case, why is it on the BBC? Why is the licence fee paying for six - gulp - hour-long episodes amounting to one giant ad? Is there really that much to say?
There’s the timing, too. He goes shopping for a gift to mark their second wedding anniversary and spends £414 on candles. That’ll go down well with viewers struggling to pay their bills.
There is a bit more to it than candles. Stacey and Joe are a prime example of opposites attracting. She’s obsessively neat, he’s cool with mess; she worries about everything, he doesn’t. It’s all a laugh in a sitcom kind of way, till he turns up late to her business meeting. Not just a bit late - five hours late. She looks so sad and at the same time hacked off.
Neither bear a grudge though, and as parents they make a formidable team. They more than pass muster, too, as a family. Not the Waltons or the Simpsons, just themselves.
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