Reality show House Guest in the Sun was recently filmed in Paphos and was aired last week. JILL CAMPBELL MACKAY tunes in and speaks to its winner
Almost everyone believes they can rise to the occasion to host a reasonable dinner party, so unlike other competitions where a specific talent or modicum of intelligence is required, the barrier for qualification on dinner party reality show House Guest in the Sun – screened last week from Paphos – is set pretty low.
The competitors are carefully selected by wily TV researchers aiming to ensure a diverse mix of personalities, and it’s a programme that is both cringe worthy and addictive to watch. It’s also cheap TV, requiring no actors or a studio and filming takes just a week, the carefully edited highlights of which is what you see on screen.
Paphos’ turn in the spotlight started in the home of eventual winners Carol and David Harvey, who live in what the cameras described as “the lovely Cypriot village of Kamares”. In the show, each of the five couples takes it in turn to host the rest for a dinner party, after which one person will stay for the night. Votes are then cast as to who provided the most entertaining evening. The Harveys evening was themed as a Cypriot night with rude food to start in the form of an erotic blossoming fig, which one guest didn’t quite know how to handle. This was followed by moussaka, which got guest Stella in a bit of twist about the authenticity of Carol’s “custard like topping”.
Each host also lays on some form of entertainment, and the Harveys ordered a Cypriot dance troupe but they didn’t show up, so it was left to Carol, an ex dancer, to deliver a rather dubious version. Angie was the first of the week’s overnight guests, who are also given a gift by their host, and at the end of the night was ushered into the guest room and presented with a hand-painted glass bottle with the name and date of the show embossed on the front. Next morning we saw Angie massaging the seat of a Harley Davidson in the company of owner David, both having turned out to be Easy Riders and ensuring Angie revved up her point score in favour of her hosts.
Both keen cooks who like to entertain, Carol and David said they never expected to win. “I was shocked,” Carol said. “I genuinely didn’t expect to win, I though Michelle would have”.
Tuesday was the turn of 40-year-old teacher Val and his wife Michelle. These London expats have designed and built their own three-storey house but in doing so omitted to add a guest room. Matthew, their house guest, didn’t appreciate the rubber blow-up bed he was forced to lie on, which is a shame as if they had offered a proper room, in my opinion they would have won as Michelle’s excellent Caribbean menu was an obvious triumph.
By Wednesday, Stella, the woman clearly identified as the group’s dragon, was still not performing as expected, perhaps feeling the need to be somewhat circumspect after announcing (several times) she was in the restaurant business. But it was Matthew and partner Kate’s turn to enter the fray. Sadly I missed this episode but, from what I heard, this was a classic culinary graveyard but the evening did seemingly deliver a wealth of much needed hilarious TV moments.
Thursday saw the turn of newly married hosts, the rather saccharine Angie and Martin. Angie soon proved the lure of 1,000 crisp smackers (the show’s prize money) landing in her lap would not go amiss but she seriously misjudged the entire evening by bringing in friends to prepare, cook and serve dinner.
The pair then proceeded to entertain guests by having Martin murder Frank Sinatra’s classic ‘When Somebody Loves You’ karaoke style. The resultant cringe factor on faces of each of the trapped guests showed how this loved up couple had well and truly blown their chances of winning. The choice of gift the hosts had selected for their guest? A sculptural rendering of a couple having a snog on a rock later spotted selling for €13 at a local supermarket.
Tired and emotional, Carol then shocked other competitors by announcing (in all seriousness) that she was the reincarnation of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. At last, someone had cracked and gone off their rocker; things were really hotting up for Friday’s finale. Although it is widely believed that these shows are quite scripted, Carol disagreed. “I didn’t see a mirror image of myself on screen, but neither did I feel I was being edited into character”.
Meanwhile Angie and Martin’s chances of success looked less hopeful as overnight guest Val said he had been unable to sleep due to an intense pong of sewerage wafting around this couple’s love nest.
Stella, the final host before the announcement of the winner, was determined to pull out all the stops. Her guests however were equally keen to come to dinner with all guns blazing after she had criticised each of the week’s previous hosts. All was going well with guests impressed by their host’s somewhat over-the-top Dallas-style abode until the lights went out as Stella cooked her starter of prawns. After 40 minutes in the dark there were some evil mutterings around the table that Stella had pulled the plug on herself to allow the sneaky entry of her husband’s restaurant staff into the kitchen to deliver a take away. Yes, it was getting uber bitchy.
Despite being a good host and serving up a quality meal, Stella was not ranked highly by the other competitors as they took the view that as a professional hostess she didn’t deserve to win, plus by week’s end she had earned the nickname Joan Collins.
Overnight guest Carol happily dealt the final blow to Stella’s hopes by complaining there was no hot water in the morning to wash. Once again she questioned Stella’s true culinary qualifications when presented with two ‘raw’ boiled eggs. She did get a gift of a cuddly toy plus a voucher to dine at Stella and her husband’s restaurant.
“The whole experience was great fun and very exciting, although it was tiring – we worked long hours just to get one shot and ended up exhausted by it all,” Carol said. “I would do it again but would be a bit wiser as you do get lulled into a false sense of security”. After reimbursing her gift voucher at Stella’s restaurant, where she and her husband enjoyed “a very nice meal”, Carol and David spent the prize money on household bills and by visiting their children in the UK – houseguests in the rain.
COMPETITORS
Carol Harvey – retired dancer and husband David (the winners)
Val Nonyelu – teacher/retired actor and wife Michelle
Mathew Edmonson – entertainer and partner Kate
Angie Rhodes – saleswoman and husband Martin
Stella Virdi – restaurant owner and husband Budge
