The modern world of dating is ripe for disappointment, and recent dating app convert Sophie is certainly not immune. ‘I went on a date with an actor – not doing too bad – we go to Zuma. I ordered everything; Henry VIII in there, got it all. Then the bill came and he says, how should we do this? Ugh! Ejector seat. Meep! Bye bye. No, I couldn’t. I paid the whole bill and left. Auf wiedersehen.’
Luckily, pal Olivia has a solution, and advises her to ditch the apps and instead sign up to a millionaires’ dating agency run by her friend. Good advice for all of us, perhaps, although I’m not sure I would make the criteria for the dating agency. But this is Made in Chelsea, where finding a millionaire to date is a completely reasonable expectation.
Sophie is Sophie Hermann and Olivia is Olivia Bentley, both glamorous, wealthy and long-time MiC cast members. The show, which first aired 14 years ago this week, is now in its 29th season – making it one of the UK’s longest running reality TV programmes. For the uninitiated, the E4 series follows the love lives, partying and extravagant shopping habits of glossy twenty- and thirtysomethings in London’s most exclusive borough. In this gilded world, no woman sets foot in a gym without perfectly blow-dried hair, champagne is cracked open daily and the word ‘work’ is only very occasionally mentioned accompanied by vague hand gestures and absolutely no details whatsoever. Original cast members include Jamie Laing, great-great-grandson of a baronet and an heir to the McVitie’s biscuit fortune. It is an entirely unrelatable world for most of us, and yet its popularity endures – but why?
Well, as a loyal fan for going on ten years, let me explain. First of all, the drama quotient is high. No one can spin a ‘he said, she said’ rumour into a 45-minute fallout like an MiC producer. This week’s episode was a prime example, with a group trip to Dorset providing the backdrop for the lies of various characters to be revealed to their new love interests and friends in a dinner party denouement (dinner party revelations are a regular feature on MiC).
MiC is what’s known as ‘structured reality’, so while it is not scripted, the scenes and situations are set up by producers. But the relationships are real and the reactions of cast members certainly appear to be genuine, as the open-mouthed gasps around the dinner table in this week’s episode can attest.
The extravagant lifestyle of this privileged set lends itself to the ridiculous, and as a result it is funny. The low bar for what constitutes a reason to get dressed up in black tie gets more absurd with each season – a favourite of mine was the ‘pangolin awareness’ black-tie event in season 12.
On the rare occasions my French husband watches with me, we have to switch on the subtitles because, as he bemoans, ‘Why don’t they open their mouths when they speak?’
Equally, the cast seem self-aware enough about their privileged existence to not take themselves too seriously and there is always at least one zinger in every episode: ‘I would literally trade my inheritance for a date with you’ (Angus) was one recently classic.
It is also a masterclass in how to talk ‘posh’. On the rare occasions that my French husband watches an episode with me, we have had to switch on the subtitles because, as he bemoans, ‘Why don’t they open their mouths when they speak?’. No, posh people don’t need to fully enunciate; too much effort. A regular MiC scenario will have two female cast members (who viewers know hate one another) ‘bump into each other’, passive-aggressively air-kiss and through tightly clenched smiles proffer the standard posh greeting ‘Haaarahhhyoooo?’ (translation: How are you?).
For the most part, the romantic relationships on view end up the way you would expect of couples made up of posh young kids with too much money and too much time on their hands – i.e. dead in the water. But as cast members grow up, serious relationships do develop. Laing met his now wife, Sophie Habboo, on the show.
Meanwhile, Maeva D’Ascanio and James Taylor got together after starting out as a tumultuous love triangle between Taylor, fiery Parisian D’Ascanio and her former boyfriend and James’s then best friend, Miles Nazaire. D’Ascanio and Taylor are now married with a young son, and have remained on the show. D’Ascanio’s tearful revelation on this week’s episode that they love each other but just ‘can’t stand each other any more’ will strike a chord with many parents of young children, no doubt.
Ultimately, MiC’s best gift is light entertainment. The cast are glossy and good-looking, they create scandals and then gossip about them, and they give us a glimpse into the world of the wealthy where parties are frequent and responsibilities are low. Later on in this week’s episode, Hermann meets the woman from the millionaire dating agency and is asked what is her one ‘deal breaker’ in dating. In response, Hermann pulls out a notebook and reels off a long list, which includes: ‘No matching socks, no printed socks. No piercings. No one from Leeds,’ and finally, ‘No boat fashion if you don’t own a boat’. Good luck to her.
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