Born Famous: Gordon Ramsay Channel 4, 10pm ***
IN the movie Born Free, a charming couple bring up a lion cub before releasing it into the wild. Channel 4’s Born Famous does the same thing with celebrities’ children, setting them loose in the hardscrabble areas where their famous parents grew up to find out if junior can cope.
Born Free concluded happily. Would Gordon Ramsay’s son end up toast? In an episode to come, will Michelle Mone’s daughter cut the mustard, never mind the fabric, in the East End of Glasgow?
It is easy to be sniffy about this Channel 4 four parter. Made by Ramsay’s own production company, the programme has pretensions to be a sociological experiment but the youngsters are placed in contrived, strictly controlled situations for just a week. There is something whiffy, besides, in using working class communities like a sort of urban jungle gym for privileged teens.
Ramsay’s son Jack was introduced to the viewer at his 18th birthday party, a modest black tie affair for several hundred guests in one of dad’s restaurants. Later, as the programme gave a Through the Keyhole look around the family’s London home (their other gaff is in LA), we saw one of Jack’s previous birthday gifts, a Rolex. Let us just say no backing track of violins was required at this point.
Dad seemed to be relishing the prospect of his son being put to the test. “Jack needs to feel vulnerable,” said the pudding-faced Scot. “He needs to be dropped in the **** to get his **** together.” No further details were forthcoming about Jack's lack of success with his ****; one of the advantages of producing a show about your own family is you control the flow of information.
The 18-year-old was heading to Bretch Hill in Oxfordshire. This is where a young Gordon ended up after a childhood that started in Johnstone in 1966 and meandered around a succession of places. By the time the Ramsays got to Oxfordshire they had moved at least 18 times. At one point the children were taken into care.
Jack was to spend the week with George. Having been kicked out by his mum after going on a spending spree with her bank card, a good night for George was sleeping on a mate’s sofa. A bad night was shivering in a tent in the park. With no job, and living on £57.90 a week in benefits, dinner dates at a Ramsay eatery did not loom large in his future.
Jack and George rubbed along just fine. Jack got along with everybody he met, including the tough who demanded “Where’s your dad?” because he wanted an autograph.
The show came into its own when Jack began to answer the question he set his dad at the beginning of the programme: if Ramsay senior had to live in Bretch Hill these days, could he break out and succeed as he did before? Dad, after all, was given a council flat with his sister when he was 16; the local youth club was his haven; and he had a place at college studying cooking. George was unemployed, the youth club was shut now, and who was going to give him a second chance?
Dad was having none of it, arguing that he would still have made it because he was so determined. Later, speaking to the camera on his own, Jack doubted it was that straightforward these days. “Hunger isn’t the only part of the recipe you need.”
His eyes had been opened, to what end who can say. Were we witnessing Jack Ramsay, future politician in the making, or Jack Ramsay adding to his television presenting cv? Either way, he is back in cosy captivity now.
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