Trinny and Susannah Undress and impress

Trinny and Susannah are like Marmite - you either love them or you hate them.

So the provocatively-titled new ITV1 series Trinny and Susannah Undress will no doubt divide the nation.

ITV take heart - their semi-naked poster campaign worked. It did something unlikely - it made men notice the show. Or maybe it was just the title. At least two men I know said they were going to tune in this week.

One thing's for sure...it makes What Not to Wear look as last season as leggings. New hosts Lisa Butcher and Mica Paris look like imitations of Trinny and Susannah.

Trinny and Susannah Undress is basically What Not to Wear with some marriage guidance thrown in. The pair now makeover couples, trying to relight the spark in their relationships along the way.

Looking more glamorous with each new series they present, Trinny and Susannah do their usual turn of ripping to shreds people's clothes sense, saying "breasts" a lot and then wrapping their volunteers in stylish new clothes.

The question in Trinny and Susannah Undress is, are they emperor's new clothes? Can a fab new wrap dress and a sharp shirt really save a couple's marriage?

They took on a tough task in the first episode. Carer Ellie and house husband Lester were like Little and Large, but with more humour.

Ellie was over a decade younger than Lester and seven inches taller. She said her husband reminded her of Dudley Moore. Presumably in his Arthur 2: On the Rocks days. He wore sandals and tracksuit bottoms pulled up high a la Simon Cowell. She had spaniel's ears hair and boobs to match. Ideal candidates for the dastardly duo to dress down, then dress up.

But viewers were pulled up mid-laugh as the show revealed part of the reason the couple's marriage was under strain was they had two autistic children and had cared for Lester's ill dad for a decade.

At times it did teeter on the edge of sentimentality. Fortunately Trinny and Susannah's hearty brusqueness pulled the programme back from the edge, but Susannah did show they cared.

"I just want to give them a good time", she said, with a hint of a tear in her eye.

Which is perhaps why she volunteered to join the couple in a threesome later.

Some scenes were cringe-worthy. Susannah got more than she bargained for when she took Lester round an Ann Summers store. He giggled nervously like a character from a Carry On film then proceeded to lick her wrists with such relish she must have been doing Lady Macbeth impressions for hours afterwards.

Halfway through my husband and I turned to each other and said: "What are we doing watching this?" But it is compelling viewing. However, we'd Sky Plus'd it so were able to scoot through the adverts, (sorry Littlewoods, who paid a packet for the sponsorship) which helped as they break the continuity - a problem the BBC's What Not to Wear obviously doesn't have.

There were times when we wanted to hide behind the sofa. Particularly during the new gimmick Trinny and Susannah have thought up.

In a twist on the What Not to Wear dressing room mirror, their victims now undress behind a back-lit screen, look at each other naked and describe what they like about each other.

Brave or an exercise in ritual humiliation?

Certainly a challenge for the editor. Lester and Ellie hadn't had sex in four months so there were lots of shots of the couple's silhouettes above the waist.

But Trinny and Susannah's directness paid off, with Ellie admitting she'd had an affair.

Say what you like about Trinny and Susannah, they've been together so long they know what makes each other tick and have more chemistry between them than most of the couples they makeover. And they do seem to care about what they're doing, more so than their successors on What Not to Wear.

And in a TV world packed with celebrities who phone their PRs before even thinking about saying boo to a goose, it's refreshing to have hosts who aren't afraid to speak their minds and don't soft-soap their volunteers. And it pays off, as people do seem to trust Trinny and Susannah.

It seemed to work for Ellie and Lester - though I wonder what will have happened to them if the show revisits them in a year's time, once the new haircuts have grown up and the new clothes have holes in them?

But it's an undeniable truth that a nice haircut, a bit of slap and a bit of praise can boost someone's confidence. Can Susannah and Trinny Undress do the same for ITV1?