British audiences have an insatiable appetite for reality television. “Big Brother” is still on screens after 25 years. There are countless reality shows where affluent people have passive-aggressive arguments over salad, or find out their partners are having affairs (although I suspect they would have found out anyway, considering there’s a film crew).
Yet, for a while now there’s been a surprising lack of innovation in this genre. Sure, there’s new competition reality shows like “Race Across the World,” but in the specific genre of ‘people dealing very publicly with all of their dirty laundry,’ not much has changed for quite a while. “Made in Chelsea” is about to debut its 29th series. “The Only Way Is Essex” is about to begin its 34th. And whilst there have been countless American streaming dramas set within the U.K., from Lena Dunham’s “Too Much” to the soapy political series “The Diplomat,” only a few reality shows have made the same transatlantic jump. One exception being, of course, Alan Cumming seductively saying “Muurrrddderrrrr” from his Scottish castle on “The Traitors” U.S.
Until now. “Real Housewives” is launching a London series. The franchise, which began in Orange County, follows the lives of affluent and successful women. Storylines explore friendship, rivalry, grief and hardship, with cast members being so open and transparent about literally everything that you can’t help but watch. The franchise is known for its arguments between cast members, such as the time “Real Housewives of New York City” cast member Aviva Drescher took off her own prosthetic leg and threw it across the table mid-argument. There are also high-stakes plotlines you didn’t see coming, such as the arrest of Salt Lake City’s Jen Shah for her role in a nationwide telemarketing fraud. So as you can imagine, with a new British series, the marketing wordplay around the cast spilling the tea is endless.
This isn’t the first time “Housewives” have crossed the pond. “Real Housewives of Cheshire” has graced British screens for more than a decade. Another in Jersey lasted only two seasons, but neither have managed to spark a cultural conversation beyond the relatively niche British channel viewers they both aired on. “Real Housewives of London,” brought to screens by the reality streaming platform Hayu, feels more of an ambitious (and costly) effort to change all that, with a production feel much more in line with its other Stateside iterations.
Yet, launching a British version of shows is never an easy task. Fresh from the success of the property reality show “Selling Sunset,” Netflix attempted a similar British series called “Buying London,” but the outlandishly expensive (and arguably quite ugly) properties didn’t sit well with viewers during the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. The only reaction it caused with viewers was them wanting to eat the rich.
“Real Housewives of London” doesn’t shy away from similar eye-watering extravagance, but it gets away with it. Why? Because all of it is camp. One of the Housewives proudly owns a stuffed swan called Gertrude. Camp! All of them are oblivious to the existence of London’s very good public transport network, persisting to drive in constant stationary traffic. Camp! A little dog called ‘Monty True Madness’ is waited on paw and paw so much (a dog cannot be waited on hand and foot, it is a dog) that he’s carried everywhere, with his paws only touching the floor for seconds in the debut episode. Camp camp camp!
In fact, “Real Housewives of London” doesn’t feel like an accurate title at all. It’s more like “Real Housewives of Belgravia With a Bit of Chelsea and the Countryside in It.” Good luck to them navigating a British street that doesn’t have a Balenciaga store on it. Scenes often veer into the ridiculous. Skincare entrepreneur Amanda Cronin was introduced to viewers with an admission that she is actually “a really private person.” Before you even have the time to respond with “Amanda, do you know that you are on ‘Real Housewives?’” you learn that Portia, one of her friend’s dogs, has just had a facial. As you launch ChatGPT on your phone and ask AI whether labradors can have facials (apparently they can!), Juliet Mayhew turns up wearing an outfit that fell out of Queen Elizabeth I’s wardrobe from the 16th century. For no reason. It’s never explained. Scenes such as these continue for the rest of the episode.
Inevitably, nearly all the Housewives take considerable time to boast about their proximity to the Royal Family, as if you somehow become more Royal the more geographically close you are to them at all times. If that fails, they advocate some tenuous link to some dead historical figures. Do you know that event planner Mayhew’s partner Tiggy is a distant relative of William ‘Braveheart’ Wallace who lived from 1270-1305? You don’t?!
In keeping with the Housewives brand, there are quotable one-liners from the array of constant arguments. An argument about someone’s alcohol intake is responded with “How’s that Ozempic you’ve shot in your body for the last five years?,” to which they retort “pretty good, I lost eight kilos.” In a trailer following the first episode, a heated argument leads to a dramatic yell of “Back to Paddington!,” which has already become an internet meme despite the episode not having aired yet. It shouldn’t need pointing out, but I will anyway — I think she means the train station, rather than the bear.
None of what I have written above in this review so far is a criticism of “Real Housewives of London,” by the way. In fact, this is why it works. It is moreish and enjoyably stupid. Yet a challenge is whether the British version will be able to sustain such outlandish arguments and unnecessary high-stakes situations that has made the original franchise so loved.
The first dispute in “Real Housewives of London” is over someone siding with their dentist rather than them from a situation that happened before the cameras started rolling. It was delivered in such an unnecessarily complicated way that at one point I nearly quit watching to work out what was actually happening by writing it all out on bits of paper, attaching it on a corkboard and linking these papers together with string. Yet this wasn’t the issue. It was that the argument was surprisingly forced and wedged into the plot rather than spilling out naturally, even though on reality television everyone knows that reality can be anything but.
It’s hard to work out right now as there was only one episode available to preview, but perhaps there’s a cultural challenge that “Real Housewives of London” will have to navigate. In Britain, we’re less inclined to throw wine at each other’s faces during heated arguments. In fact, instead of yelling, disputes often remain unresolved, sometimes for decades, because we don’t communicate our frustration to the person who has offended us so much in the first place. This often results in sheer hatred toward the other individual bubbling away in our subconscious, sometimes without the other person ever knowing that there’s anything wrong. Only mutuals know of any conflict because snark and jokes are shared between them on WhatsApp.
It is this culture that “Real Housewives of London” will have to navigate in, or forcefully find a way through. Trust me, this culture runs deep. Honestly, it makes you proud to be British.
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