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Private Notes
Daisy is in Brazil looking backstage as the country prepares to explode onto the world stage with the World Cup and Olympics in 2016 – and she finds extremes of television, from programmes objectifying and humiliating women to a bloody version of Crimewatch. She goes behind the scenes of Brazil’s most revealing talent show, Miss Bum Bum, where young women go cheek-to-cheek to decide who has the best backside. Although shocking to her eyes, Daisy finds that Brazilians regard the programme as a harmless celebration of the female form. Digging deeper, Daisy discovers a darker side to the froth and frivolity of Brazilian entertainment TV when she meets an ex-member of the ‘Panicats’ - a group of bikini-clad women who are subjected to what Daisy sees as degrading challenges in the name of TV entertainment. Brazil has one of the highest crime rates in the world, as Daisy finds out as a live guest on Na Mira, a bloody version of Crimewatch. The programme is filled with shocking footage of dead bodies on pavements and buried corpses being pulled from the ground – all the more disturbing for being scheduled at lunchtime after kids’ cartoons.
This week Daisy’s exploring India, a nation obsessed by the small screen - from hard-hitting talk shows to countless talent shows and soap operas. In a country of 1.2 billion people, where almost every household rich or poor has a television, there’s no lack of choice with a staggering 800 channels. But India is caught in a titanic struggle between modernisation and ancient tradition – and it’s a battle that is being played out on the country’s television screens. To get to the heart of this large and eclectic nation, Daisy is getting involved in some of its biggest TV shows. From the oldest and most traditional art forms to Bollywood, dance is a huge part of Indian culture and Daisy manages to blag an audition for one of the region’s biggest dance shows, Dance Maharashtra Dance. After stunning the judges into silence with her freestyle dance moves, Daisy’s offered a guest spot on the show and sent straight into training with India’s answer to Louis Spence. There she meets seven-year-old Jeet Das, who became an overnight sensation after wowing judges and audiences on Dance India Dance. It’s a fast-track to fame and fortune that leads thousands of hopeful child stars to audition each year. In a country ridden with poverty, these television shows offer more than just fifteen minutes of fame. Daisy is introduced to a world of pain by the Warriors of Goja, a Sikh group who are bringing their form of martial arts, known as Gatka, to thrilled and appalled audiences on reality TV. From eating glass to being smashed with sledgehammers and even run over by cars, it’s not for the faint-hearted – and Daisy gets the chance to become the first ever female Goja Warrior as she joins them on stage for a stunt that would horrify British Health and Safety officials. One of last year’s smash hits on Indian TV wasn’t a talent search or a scripted drama, it was Truth Alone Prevails, a no holds barred talk show tackling the biggest issues affec
This week Daisy is exploring the TV of the Arab world - it’s a journey that sees her sucked into the darkest of Egyptian comedy and inspired by the most sublime talent show on earth. Prank shows are hugely popular in Egypt and Daisy starts by interviewing one of the nation’s favourite old-school practical jokers, Sherif Baher - a man who recently terrified hopeful actors on a film set by threatening to blow them up with real explosives. But when Sherif collapses during the interview and a doctor and the police arrive, it’s not clear whether the joke has gone too far. Daisy next meets the brains behind some of the cruellest pranks in television history. Ramez Galal’s latest show was the highest rating in Egypt last year, in it unsuspecting and terrified celebrities are ambushed and taken hostage at gunpoint – it’s a very real fear in the country following the bloody revolution. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” says Daisy, after watching a beloved Egyptian actor get the Ramez treatment. “It’s like a snuff murder movie. Inhumane. Ramez can barely contain his laughter holding a gun to his head. He has to be nuts.” But when she tries to interview the notorious prankster, Daisy finds herself and her terrified director locked in a room by him as he releases snakes, bats and an 8-foot python. Have Ramez and his team become immune to brutality or are they just exploiting a pitch-black gallows humour that Egyptians seem to enjoy? In the end, the only option is to interview Ramez on a live Egyptian TV talk show. Daisy heads to Abu Dhabi to participate in a huge home-grown reality TV hit that celebrates a very different aspect of Arab culture. Millions Poet, the Arab world’s equivalent of X Factor, features contestants reciting poetry in ancient Arabic for an audience of 70 million – Daisy will be the first westerner to take part. Daisy meets the only woman ever to reach the finals of the competition – a veiled housew
Daisy goes behind the scenes of TV in South Korea. She meets an online TV star who cooks - and eats - for an audience of people who live alone. And she takes a role in the top-rated TV show where six top comedians, whose sense of humour is hard for outsiders to understand, face a series of madcap challenges. With tensions between North and South Korea higher than they've been in decades, Daisy goes behind the scenes on Now on My Way to Meet You, an extraordinary Loose Women-style TV talk show featuring a panel of 15 female North Korean 'defector beauties' who chat, dance, share jokes and flirt with male celebrities. But, alongside the chat and fluff, the women also reveal shocking details of their lives in the isolated dictatorship, including torture, starvation and brainwashing, and every show ends with a defector telling their heartrending story, and often looking for lost family members. Daisy finds out about South Korea's obsession with gaming and meets a professional 'e-sport' team who live and train together 24/7 in a specially created residence and compete for hundreds of thousands of pounds in prize money, playing a sophisticated strategy shoot-em-up game on dedicated TV channels.
