Interview: Stephen Lambert, reality-TV creator (Evening Standard)
How I seduced the Wife Swap couples: Critics panned it but viewers were hooked. So how does the creator of reality TV's latest hit react to claims of exploitation? By David Rowan
IF Stephen Lambert needs a follow-up to his hit Channel 4 reality series, Wife Swap, which ended its much talked-about run last night, he might want to invite the nation's TV critics into his office and switch on the cameras. For raw human emotion and unpredictable fury, he would be on to a winner.
After all, The Daily Mail condemned the series as " repugnant and confusing", The Daily Telegraph called it "an abuse of reality TV's Godlike powers" and The Guardian wondered whether the ITC should simply switch off the Channel 4 transmitter.
For a show that won the channel a breakthrough six million viewers, and has been bought for a second series and an American pilot, Wife Swap has proved remarkably controversial. In one episode Dee, an overweight white woman with "a real problem with coloureds", was forced to spend two weeks living with Lance - black, sexist and intolerant. The result made uncomfortably gripping viewing. Dee subsequently said that taking part was "a big mistake; it's made my family look horrible".
So, is Lambert simply a public service "observational filmmaker", as he claims, or, in the words of Evening Standard TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith, "expert at persuading naive working class families to sign release forms, before coldly dissecting their lives on screen in the name of entertainment"?
Lambert, a focused, unostentatious man who created such reality formats as Faking It and Shipwrecked, does not seem too bothered by his critics. "It's patronising to say that these people are being hoodwinked by the producers," he says over lunch.
"They go in with their eyes wide open, and 99 per cent of people taking part in our programmes find the experience has more positive effects than negative."
"We're not social workers," says Lambert. "Our main job is to persuade people to take part, not point out hundreds of reasons why they shouldn't. We're documentary makers - people cooperate because they like the director. It's a question of trust."
This is a harder argument to sustain where children are involved, such as "foulmouthed" Mary, reportedly now being bullied for behaviour on episode one that, according to one newspaper, "made the Osbourne children look like the von Trapps".
Lambert says he was "particularly concerned about the children", and that scenes involving them were dropped if considered "unfair". He trusted his programme directors as " nonexploitative and sensitive people with a great sense of empathy".
"I think it very unlikely people will be bullied at school for doing something on TV that they're not already doing in school," he says matter-of-factly. "A family is portrayed as it is. But let's not just see the short-term consequences - maybe in the long term it will do them some good."
It is a neatly convenient justification - that even if participants are unhappy in the short term, the experience may enhance self-understanding. Would he allow a camera crew to record his domestic life? "If I knew what the programme was about and thought it was interesting, and if I'd met the director and trusted him, yes."
As executive producer of series such as Wife Swap and Faking It, Lambert, 43, designs programme formats, gets shows commissioned, and chooses the directors. After 16 years at the BBC, where he made his name with Forty Minutes and Modern Times and pioneered " docusoaps" such as Clampers, he left in 1998 to join the independent production house RDF as director of programmes and an equity partner.
There he has been responsible for a range of tabloid favourites including House Moves from Hell (ITV1), Michael Jackson's Face (Channel 5), and Shipwrecked (Channel 4). Generally, they have been ratings grabbers, but not all have attracted the critical acclaim of his earlier BBC documentaries such as True Brits, which followed the Foreign Office over a year, or Hilary's in Hiding, about a family divided by allegations of child abuse.
BUT Lambert refuses to accept that the current popularity of reality shows has pushed "serious" documentaries off the schedules. "Much larger numbers would rather watch real people talking with real dialogue than from weak scripts. And though these shows might take an artificial situation, it starts to matter to everybody - participants as well as viewers."
Peter Bazalgette, the Endemol UK chairman behind Big Brother, credits Wife Swap and Faking It with being "more upfront and honest" than many documentaries. He sees Lambert as "a very modern, effective TV operator". "With Wife Swap, he's created a human situation where people interact, there's a resolution, and you know it's going to deliver. It's just what the modern schedule needs - a guarantee of revelation and entertainment in each programme."
Lambert, who lives in Muswell Hill with his wife, a former Radio 4 producer, and two children, sees no reason for the "reality" genre to burn out. "We haven't reached a peak," he says, citing the US experience where Hollywood is reassessing the dominance of scripted TV. "It's bringing a young audience to broadcast networks that they've been losing for 20 years."
Reality TV has helped RDF to a £33 million turnover this year. Even as he reaps the benefits, Lambert cannot help slipping momentarily back from entrepreneur to observational sociologist. "One of the most striking things about Jamie's Kitchen was that those young people were shocked by the idea of putting effort in to make the restaurant successful. If no one's interested in putting effort in, it's problematic for society."
He reflects: "People aren't self aware, are they?"
I smile, knowing that therein lies a powerful media business.
(Evening Standard, January 29 2003)
IF Stephen Lambert needs a follow-up to his hit Channel 4 reality series, Wife Swap, which ended its much talked-about run last night, he might want to invite the nation's TV critics into his office and switch on the cameras. For raw human emotion and unpredictable fury, he would be on to a winner.
After all, The Daily Mail condemned the series as " repugnant and confusing", The Daily Telegraph called it "an abuse of reality TV's Godlike powers" and The Guardian wondered whether the ITC should simply switch off the Channel 4 transmitter.
For a show that won the channel a breakthrough six million viewers, and has been bought for a second series and an American pilot, Wife Swap has proved remarkably controversial. In one episode Dee, an overweight white woman with "a real problem with coloureds", was forced to spend two weeks living with Lance - black, sexist and intolerant. The result made uncomfortably gripping viewing. Dee subsequently said that taking part was "a big mistake; it's made my family look horrible".
So, is Lambert simply a public service "observational filmmaker", as he claims, or, in the words of Evening Standard TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith, "expert at persuading naive working class families to sign release forms, before coldly dissecting their lives on screen in the name of entertainment"?
Lambert, a focused, unostentatious man who created such reality formats as Faking It and Shipwrecked, does not seem too bothered by his critics. "It's patronising to say that these people are being hoodwinked by the producers," he says over lunch.
"They go in with their eyes wide open, and 99 per cent of people taking part in our programmes find the experience has more positive effects than negative."
"We're not social workers," says Lambert. "Our main job is to persuade people to take part, not point out hundreds of reasons why they shouldn't. We're documentary makers - people cooperate because they like the director. It's a question of trust."
This is a harder argument to sustain where children are involved, such as "foulmouthed" Mary, reportedly now being bullied for behaviour on episode one that, according to one newspaper, "made the Osbourne children look like the von Trapps".
Lambert says he was "particularly concerned about the children", and that scenes involving them were dropped if considered "unfair". He trusted his programme directors as " nonexploitative and sensitive people with a great sense of empathy".
"I think it very unlikely people will be bullied at school for doing something on TV that they're not already doing in school," he says matter-of-factly. "A family is portrayed as it is. But let's not just see the short-term consequences - maybe in the long term it will do them some good."
It is a neatly convenient justification - that even if participants are unhappy in the short term, the experience may enhance self-understanding. Would he allow a camera crew to record his domestic life? "If I knew what the programme was about and thought it was interesting, and if I'd met the director and trusted him, yes."
As executive producer of series such as Wife Swap and Faking It, Lambert, 43, designs programme formats, gets shows commissioned, and chooses the directors. After 16 years at the BBC, where he made his name with Forty Minutes and Modern Times and pioneered " docusoaps" such as Clampers, he left in 1998 to join the independent production house RDF as director of programmes and an equity partner.
There he has been responsible for a range of tabloid favourites including House Moves from Hell (ITV1), Michael Jackson's Face (Channel 5), and Shipwrecked (Channel 4). Generally, they have been ratings grabbers, but not all have attracted the critical acclaim of his earlier BBC documentaries such as True Brits, which followed the Foreign Office over a year, or Hilary's in Hiding, about a family divided by allegations of child abuse.
BUT Lambert refuses to accept that the current popularity of reality shows has pushed "serious" documentaries off the schedules. "Much larger numbers would rather watch real people talking with real dialogue than from weak scripts. And though these shows might take an artificial situation, it starts to matter to everybody - participants as well as viewers."
Peter Bazalgette, the Endemol UK chairman behind Big Brother, credits Wife Swap and Faking It with being "more upfront and honest" than many documentaries. He sees Lambert as "a very modern, effective TV operator". "With Wife Swap, he's created a human situation where people interact, there's a resolution, and you know it's going to deliver. It's just what the modern schedule needs - a guarantee of revelation and entertainment in each programme."
Lambert, who lives in Muswell Hill with his wife, a former Radio 4 producer, and two children, sees no reason for the "reality" genre to burn out. "We haven't reached a peak," he says, citing the US experience where Hollywood is reassessing the dominance of scripted TV. "It's bringing a young audience to broadcast networks that they've been losing for 20 years."
Reality TV has helped RDF to a £33 million turnover this year. Even as he reaps the benefits, Lambert cannot help slipping momentarily back from entrepreneur to observational sociologist. "One of the most striking things about Jamie's Kitchen was that those young people were shocked by the idea of putting effort in to make the restaurant successful. If no one's interested in putting effort in, it's problematic for society."
He reflects: "People aren't self aware, are they?"
I smile, knowing that therein lies a powerful media business.
(Evening Standard, January 29 2003)
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