It is heartening to see how much of the festive schedules are taken up with old-fashioned sentiment this year. And there is nothing more cockles-warming than First Dates: The Proposal (Channel 4). If you have yet to be delighted by its brightly lit charms, it’s the perfect observational dating show, dedicated to setting up strangers for dinner and seeing what happens. Cynics, look away, because you can’t enjoy the ungainly passage of true love through narrowed eyes. You have to give yourself to First Dates completely or it won’t work.
This Christmas special includes the return of several couples who upgraded their brief encounter to something more permanent and a new intake of romantic hopefuls. But most of all it sees the return of Louisa, the theology student who may or may not be Miranda Hart’s kid sister. More of her later.
Dan and Adam arrive looking like a Kooples advert: beards and ironic Christmas jumpers to match. They giggle and squeeze hands and look like one person smiling at his own reflection. Senior citizens Billy and Sandra make their entrance and nearly capsize my heart with their newfound partnership. They dance together and I swear a robin flies in through the door and sits chirruping on my shoulder. Jo and Naomi, all smiles and glossy hair swooshing with contentment, revisit their first meeting as Jo remembers her nerves at finally deciding to date a woman.
Despite the contrived setting, it’s the closest you’ll get to spying on the mating ritual from the safety of a hide. Unobtrusive cameras (and wine) allow the diners to gradually forget where they are. The action is delicately framed. Of course we want to peer at the awkward eye contact and eavesdrop on the excruciating small talk. But context is everything. It is the First Dates staff who make this show for me. Some complain that they distract from the main event but you can’t keep spooning down the toffee pudding without a dab of cream to balance it out.
The break-out star is the maître d’ Fred Sirieix; a cross between Eric Cantona and Lumière the talking candlestick from Beauty and the Beast. He trots out twinkly-eyed profundities about “lerve” and how one cannot live without it, mon dieu. But he says less than nothing. It doesn’t matter because he is essential to the show’s success. That knowing paternal manner he has with his lovelorn customers adds a warmth that the starkly-lit restaurant would otherwise lack. The seagulls will follow his trawler whatever nonsense comes out of his mouth. He’s got “it”.
The main festive event, if you believe the title, is supposed to be the “surprise” betrothal between Scott and Victoria. Their initial date was one of those strange, synergetic anomalies where, seconds into meeting, they discussed children, marriage and living arrangements. Within two months they were shacked up and discussing the wedding. Rather than saving this moment as a lovely surprise, it was trailed heavily, even showing the moment he goes down on one knee with a Haribo ring and her delighted reaction. This is the only overt cynicism in a show that otherwise avoids too much prodding and moulding of the raw material.
The new first dates continue as the established couples look on, grinning at each other as though they have all passed their driving tests while the poor learners are stalling and crunching gears just feet away.
Look, I know it’s a TV show, but the vicarious joy is there for the harvesting and quite, quite irresistible. Just as my cup overflows with mulled rapture, she appears.
Louisa: theologian, standup comedian, wearer of her mum’s old blouses and single-sex school survivor. When she first appeared on the show earlier this year, a nation leapt to its feet (well, I did and several friends agreed) as she jolly-hockey-sticked her way into the restaurant. She once attended a costume party dressed as Exeter Cathedral. Not just “a” cathedral. Exeter Cathedral. I loved her from the first moment I saw her and wise producers knew she’d be good for a return appearance.
Her date this time is Will, a similarly awks public schooler with an interest in standup comedy. They compare novelty socks and the eye contact is good. Whether the First Dates matchmakers have managed to find her the right boy this time isn’t certain but they give her the TV happy ending her fans are hoping for when Will says he would like to see her again. If Will hurts her, I will personally hunt him down.
While I’ll never forgive them for the Love, Actually ending, complete with the screen splitting into smaller and smaller boxes, each containing a happy couple, I ate it up with a spoon, my plate licked clean.
