5 hours ago
10
I have long held a soft spot for Faking It, the 00s proto-reality series that was conceived as a modern-day Pygmalion. Twenty years ago, it saw people exchanging one job for another, though its idea of what constituted a polar opposite seems almost quaint now. There was a decorator trying their hand at fine art, a posh student who became a bouncer, a ballet dancer who turned into a wrestler. It was about learning new skills, but really, it was about participants experiencing a life that was unfamiliar, among people who were not necessarily like the people they already knew. It was a wholesome culture clash, with a little class war mixed in.
As with any long-retired television series that people remember with affection, here comes the reboot. TV revivals are often lazy, and tend to rely on nostalgia rather than quality to attract an audience. That may well be the reason people tune in, to begin with, but Faking It is such a solid idea that it still has plenty of the old charm left to spare. In fact, it may work even better now, in the fractious 2020s, than it did in the optimistic glow of the early 00s.
The first episode sees Rex, a plummy public schoolboy who sells luxury property in London for a living, attempting to pass himself off as a Bolton market trader. The semi-puns about Rex going from penthouse to pork ribs are the most painful part of the episode. They ham up the class differences – Rex is being shipped to a generic north, because to be honest he isn’t sure where Bolton is; he has a drink with a friend he last saw at the polo – but despite these exaggerated Made in Chelsea moments, Rex is up for the challenge and seems well aware of his “privileged and fortunate” life situation.
In Bolton, Rex learns to sell meat from a market stall under the guidance of Tony and Elliott, who note Rex’s floppy-fringed resemblance to Hugh Grant. Despite some gentle mockery, they all seem to get on nicely, and their enthusiasm for the task at hand is contagious. By the end of his intensive training, Rex will set up his own butcher’s stall and attempt to fool three market inspectors into believing that calling out the low prices of steak and chicken wings is the job he’s done for his entire adult life.
The only real problem is that not only does Rex have to pass himself off as a market trader, he has to pretend to be from Bolton, too. He’s a hard worker who throws himself into learning, so I suspect the added pressure of the accent is to inject some necessary drama and tension. If you’ve ever wanted to see a posh southerner dying a death while compering a pub quiz in Bolton, in an accent that lands somewhere between Newcastle and the Caribbean, here it is. Even if it’s not essential, it is funny, and a little informative: if you’re curious and not from Bolton, apparently the best way into the accent is to say “ya big bad bastard”.
Modern reality TV thrives on conflict and high drama, so the Faking It model – setting someone a tricky task that involves getting along with people, while giving them everything they need to succeed and ensuring viewers are right there in their corner – is as much of a 00s relic as low-rise jeans and velour tracksuits. It shouldn’t work in the 2020s. We’ve got Married at First Sight, we’ve got The Traitors, we’ve got Love Is Blind. We’ve got squabbling and cliffhangers and emotional high stakes and on-camera meltdowns.
But Faking It does still work, and perhaps it is more valid now than it was when it began. Class barriers are more pronounced. We’re living in the tumultuous age of the echo chamber. Our beliefs are self-reinforcing, and we are becoming less likely to socialise with people who are not like us. (If Keir Starmer wants to locate the real causes of his “island of strangers”, he could start by looking at the tech companies he is so avidly courting.)
Without putting too much weight on the shoulders of light entertainment, it’s notable that people from different places and different backgrounds can be thrown together, get along just fine and still make for entertaining TV. The original Faking It had an occasional special episode, updating us on how the show had changed people’s lives. I hope they continue the tradition. I’d love to see how Rex gets on when he’s next at the polo.
