“Mark Wright’s Hollywood Nights”? I’d Sooner Have an Early One

I can vividly recall my family’s first trip to the Big Apple and, grievously enough, remember equally clearly its less than first-rate start. Ours was a morning flight out of Heathrow and we had cleared customs with hours to kill. 6AM it may have been, but I waddled into the terminal with an insurmountable yearning to go chow down with Ronald McDonald. The McChicken Sandwich: three inches of stodgy bun, soggy-crumb coated breast (or leg, or face, or whatever McDonalds was being bashed for dishing up at the time), gunky mayo and withered lettuce leaves, all washed down with slurps of lumpy vanilla shake. My 11 year old self’s plait du jour, Monday-Sunday. Ba da da da da da, I loved it. We’d been air bound for no more than 30 minutes when the churning kicked in; my stomach’s din drowned out the captain’s turbulence announcements hands down. What I learnt that day, whilst slumped by the cabin’s toilet door for a solid seven hours, is that myself and the golden arches’ McChicken didn’t travel well together. Indeed, we travelled together exceedingly badly when you think about it relatively; some people manage to flit across the pond with grace and decorum, touching down with amplified eminence and without vomit having marred their travel wear. Look at Kate and Wills, SuBo, heck even Cameron adopted some inexplicable stateside glow when he visited that White House pal of his a few weeks back. It’s hazardous, this business of transatlantic translation, but one that Mark Wright, of “The Only Way is Essex” and “I’m a Celebrity...” fame, has had a crack at with his new LA-based show “Mark Wright’s Hollywood Nights”. It’s first screening this week could have been either McChicken Sandwich awful or ministerially entertaining. So which do you think it wound up as? Oh, Mark...

Branching out: Mark tried to take Essex stateside

The most glaring error in the new show’s format was its nigh-on exclusively male core cast. To get things going, Wright lit up the screen (maybe that was just that incandescent hue of his...) and gave a run-down of the pals he’d be taking on his U.S. jaunt: Neil, Georgie, Tommy and Nick. As if to ram home the point that this was a vajazzle-less lineup, Wright shared the nicknames the gang bestowed on one another: Mr 80s, Mr Wheels, Mr Expert and Mr Mummy’s Boy. The blokey focus didn’t relent for even a moment as Mark and his cronies lounged in a sauna, nor did it subside at either the pre- or post-flight airport lounges. The fivesome sat feeblemindedly talking about their seating on the plane, chucking patently weak banter at one another and trying hard to ignore the painful moments of silence. This was their first five minutes in Los Angeles?

When Mark deemed it time to give the group some focus (“Boys?” “Boys!” “Boooooys!” We get it Mark: not a vagina in sight), things only deteriorated. For the lads’ first outrageous, side-splitting and “it could only happen to an Essex boy” mishap, they discovered they’d been furnished with a clapped out Ford to swan around in. Wild...What ground my gears is that one makes allowances for these quasi-reality shows’ being transparently staged in the hope of getting some top-notch comedy (Mark himself conceded during his intro, “some of the situations have been set up by me, purely for your entertainment”) and this was the best they could summon up. It was as if producers blanked the wealth of fun and frivolity the West Coast had to offer because they were clinging to some imagined macho tone. “It’s all gone t*ts up”, proclaimed one of the guys, in one of the few times the show got it spot-on. 

Oh, just shove him in a cell...: The boys encountered the long arm of the law

Mark himself adopted the toe-curlingly cringeworthy role of father figure to his cronies before the midway point of the episode. When they eventually rocked up at their shoddy hotel for the night, Mark and Tommy found themselves face to face with a riled up cop who suspected they had been drinking (they hadn’t, though the Smirnoff in my own lounge was looking increasingly enticing by this stage). To boost morale Mark suggested the lads have a cuddle and a slumber party, before trotting out “Best mates forever yeah? Let’s just get through it.” I’m past the sick-bucket stage, just chuck me the mop. The group was depleted of their bungling ringleader for a bit during the show (more on this coming up), but upon being reunited Mark ramped up the paternal claptrap; when he heard that his comrades had chatted up some “talent” in his absence he beamed with pride like some seedy dad longing to live vicariously. “If you need to talk to me at any point, come straight to me and we’ll sort it out together” he then told a homesick, and justifiably embarrassed Tommy. Bromance is in vogue, yes, but this show swung violently between “bros” who didn’t know each other from Adam competitively vying for macho-points and “bros” who needed mollycoddling by their head honcho. 

Shows like TOWIE have recruited devotees, have they not, because audiences can’t get enough of their preposterous and over-the-top characters? The same commonplace situations acted out by humdrum people wouldn’t pack half the punch. What was amiss in the bulk of “Hollywood Nights”, then, was that Mark’s disciples couldn’t earn a place in an audience's hearts even if they’d had the gumption to do so. They bumbled around in his shadow for the first two parts and when they awoke on their first morning to find his bed empty they were horrorstruck. The third stretch, though, shaped up to be the episode’s high point (don’t get any hopes up; it was still dismally spiritless in places), because the guys were momentarily free of Mark’s governance. There were glimmers of playboy personality from Nick and Tommy acted like the reckless child finally free from a stifling and domineering mother hen. The separation worked wonders for Mark, too; he hooked up with LA contact Hayley and her air-headed accomplice Lauren and clawed back a smidgen of his TOWIE cheeky-chappy attitude. In a segment that saw the show finally resign itself to the inescapable glitz and glam of the Hollywood Hills, Mark was ferried around whilst he sniffed out a suitably swanky residence for himself and his pals. “Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes live just right up the street.” “This is Robert DeNiro’s house.” It was a marked and welcome break from the car journey of the previous evening, during which the disjointed brotherhood picked forced banter over California razzle dazzle, “there’s a topless bird! Give her a toot!” Shameful.

Embracing at last: The gang got acquainted with LA life

The episode drew to a close with the gang regrettably reunited and hosting a bash in their new pad. When I say “bash” I mean they seemed to have petitioned several mute and malnourished-looking ladies to recline around the pool while they, the guys, engaged in another retch-inducing huddle. It was an annoyance to have the show back to subterraneous depths after it had heaved itself back to rock bottom for a stint, but, on the bright side, the credits rolled pretty quickly. In a sneak peak of what was to come next Friday, we saw Mark’s hangers-on getting waxed in tricky places whilst he watched in stitches. At least producers have one satisfied viewer in the bag...