Watercolour Challenge

I know what you're thinking. It's England, home of the fly-on-the-wall docusoap about what fun it is to paint flowerpots. But daytime TV has actually yielded a gem, in the form of 'Watercolour Challenge'. Even people who aren't interested in art can't possibly fail to be interested in this programme. Three amateur artists have four hours in which to complete a watercolour painting of a landscape. It sounds dull but if you watch it, you'll understand why more and more people are tuning in.

The show usually runs like this - find a God awful spot that no one would ever want to paint. Get three painters, one an oldish guy around 70 or so who paints realistically and well, a housewife of fiftyish who again paints rather well but usually not as well as the old guy, thirdly a student from a well known art college either a girl or boy, the boy usually has spots, either way they splash paint all over the place, their finished picture looking like it's been left out at a seaside place for a couple of day's, and is covered by seagull excreta.

Add to this mix Hannah Gordon and a judge who hasn't a clue that a painting has to vaguely resemble the subject.

The art school kid invariably wins, no matter how good the other two do.

In some episodes I wonder if the production team get in a comedian who can't paint at all to liven it up by painting something even worse that what the seagulls did.

Hannah Gordon is lovely, and jollies things along with her smile and bossy demeanor, and who you know full well is thinking to herself "what the hell is that supposed to be"😱