When Margaret from Mansfield went on her first date with Victor, Lynn told her: “Don’t you dare take him home.” “I said: ‘Lynn, I wouldn’t dream of it,’” remembers Margaret, with a naughty chuckle. “But, of course, I did!” Who’s Lynn? Oh, she’s Margaret’s granddaughter, and this is I Do At 92 (Channel 4). Actually, Margaret is 81. She’s also got 11 great-grandchildren and two great-great ones. Victor is a toyboy of 77.
He wasn’t easy to find, even with the internet to help. Margaret had been on a few disastrous dates, like the one at junction 23 of a motorway (I think she should have smelled a rat at that). “He kept saying: ‘Show us your tits, show us your tits,’ and I said: ‘Behave yourself, I haven’t come for that anyway.’ I said no, so he got up and went, ha ha ha, he realised he’d made a right bloomer.”
What had she been looking for, asks Chloe Fairweather, whose film this is, from behind the camera? “Looking for a needle in a haystack, I think,” says Margaret. She’s right, there are loads more women on the market than men at this stage of life. Old dudes – the ones who haven’t died or given up – get out there and it’s easy pickings.
Anyway, Margaret eventually found her needle, Victor; maybe it’s not surprising she took him home, for some needlework. “I can still perform, can’t I, my darling?” he says, looking at her for reassurance, in that way that couples do.
“Yes, darling, of course you can,” says Margaret, kindly. “Actually, I think it’s more loving when you’re older. I hope we’re still doing it when we’re 90.”
Eurgghh? No, not at all. It is – the whole documentary – really sweet. Romantic, definitely, and optimistic. Makes you think that maybe old age isn’t going to be all floppy and smell of biscuits and disinfectant.
Also getting hitched late: Georgina and Ray (94 and 86), who need to get a move on because Ray’s got terminal cancer (“Till death do us part” is going to take on extra poignancy). Plus Derek and Carolyn (76 and 70). Derek has never been very lucky in love; he generally gets walked all over. But he clearly worships Carolyn, and I don’t think he’d mind if she did walked all over him. She was once crowned Miss Lovely Legs and her first husband used to say she had the best pins in Peterborough. That wasn’t enough to save their marriage, mind. There are sadnesses in all their pasts.
What?! Victor’s got the wobbles, the stress of impending nuptials is getting to him and he’s not coming out of his room, leaving Margaret alone with her colouring book. Is she going to have to start looking all over again? Haystacks, junction 23, I hope not … Of course not. Victor and Margaret see sense. They are, she says touchingly, “like two imperfect people who don’t give up on each other”. And Margaret gets to go to the church, in a white horse-drawn carriage. Ha, yes, who cares what Lynn thinks about that, or about good taste; it’s not her day. Screw Lynn. And almost certainly screw Victor, too, later, but in a nice way.
The Apprentice: The Final Five (BBC1) is the one where we get a glimpse into the real lives of the remaining candidates. So, here’s Grainne at home in County Armagh, and her lovely son Ryan, who she fell pregnant with at the age of 15. But she was back at school four weeks after he was born, as she told the teacher she would be ... Oh, my God, she’s amazing.
Also Frances, who has a lovely relationship with her lorry-driver stepdad and her footballer husband, and who didn’t fit in with the ghastly toffs at Durham uni. Then there’s Courtney, who used to be fat, and Alana, whose parents were hippy travellers, so this whole Apprentice thing is a rebellion of sorts. And Jessica, with her two companies, three daughters, no partner, but one serious just-got-to-get-on-with-it attitude.
Something extraordinary happens when you give someone kids, and parents, and a bit of a back story – the odd sadness, tough times … they become human. Likable, even. I know, even people from The Apprentice! They’re even quite nice to each other, off-task and out-of-boardroom.
It really shows that what you normally see is a big conceit, manufactured for the purposes of entertainment: reality television that has little to do with reality. I expect Claude “at ’em” Littner is a big cuddly labradoodle in real life.
But enough sob stories, schmaltz and treating humans like humans. It’s interviews next – so sharpen those skewers and turn the grill up to 11.
