GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER: Thursday 22nd March, C4, 8pm
After the success of Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder (for our money one of the best docs of last year) Channel 4 eagerly informed us that they would be treating us to a new self-help series looking at people who are addicted to spending and allergic to chucking stuff away. As a result they rushed out this little number, but in their enthusiasm to strike while the iron was hot, they seem to have left the most important ingredient behind.
Last December’s documentary had heart, spirit, a razor-sharp human edge and by the end we were all rooting for the poor bloke and is hunky sidekick Andy Honey. Get Your House In Order might have good intentions but unfortunately the girl flogging her worldly possessions is pretty annoying, making it difficult to care less when she blubs after being forced to sell her silo of handbags.
Amie is a twenty-five year old shopaholic who’s spent thousands of pounds on clothes – most of which she’s never worn – and they’re cluttering her house so much that her exasperated boyfriend is considering dumping her. When you find out that she has over fifty single shoes (!!) you begin to sympathise with him. In a format which has seen more use than all of Amie’s miscellaneous consumer flotsam combined, we watch as antiques dealer Nick Allen helps her sell her loot and Abigail Ahern spends that money on renovating the couple’s crib.
In all fairness, the programme does offer some fine tips for people struggling to rein in their spending as the economy continues to lurch from one crisis to the next, but it’s difficult to make the show appealing without a positive focal point at it’s centre – which they don’t really have. Amie is nice enough, but she’s also a poster-girl for the self-indulgent first world problems that already get too much screen-time and the programme’s structure isn’t much better. An arbitrary blend of Cash In The Attic, Changing Rooms and about half a dozen other programmes, Get Your House In Order is pretty dull fare which carries all the hallmarks of a half-baked series conceived as an add-on to something far better..
