Miss Naked Beauty

I love Gok, you love Gok, the whole of Britain loves Gok Wan. The Gok Wan treatment seems to have hit Britain’s TV over the past few years and has swept the Nation making Gok one of our favourite TV hosts. You get the feeling that when he walks into the room with an idea, broadcast bosses lay down on the floor uttering words of “Yes Gok, Ok Gok, what primetime slot do you want Gok?”. It wasn’t until last night and a sigh of “oh god, there’s nothing on” that I decided to settle down to a bit of Myleene and Gok in “Miss Naked Beauty.”

Now, I’m a model show guy. I religiously watch “America’s Next Top Model”, “Britain’s Next Top Model” and the more recent “Make Me A Supermodel US” and this model show with a twist made me highly intrigued – I’m used to watching model’s gradually put more and more on to their performances so how would I cope with a show where it was stripped away. The result was startlingly good. Gok is not saying don’t wear makeup, don’t dress up, don’t look fabulous, but as with “How to Look Good Naked” he is trying to find someone who can strip back to their bare skin and sell it.

This debut episode took 200 women from all different ages, sexualities and races from across Britain and whittled it down to just 12 finalists in the hour show. They were scrubbed of makeup, asked why they should be the winner, even crowded into an empty swimming pool and blasted with full on fireman’s hoses just to wash every scrap of falsity away. It was FABULOUS! What we ended up with was a bunch of unconfident girls, some crying because they couldn’t bear to look at their hideous reflections without makeup, trying to muster the courage to take this competition further and wanting to win Miss Naked Beauty. What was even better was they then all piled the slap back on to try and impress the judges that would cut them down to the final 12! Great! They’d learned nothing!

The format’s great, Myleene and Gok are great and the principal is something well and truly deserving. I can’t wait to slump onto the couch next week, safe in the comfort that I can wear what I want and Gok won’t complain, to watch what I think will be lots more tears, tantrums and perhaps a glimmer of genius.

Channel 4 - Tuesday's at 20.00