Dinner Date (TV Series 2010–2020)

Dinner Date: With Charlotte Hudson, Natalie Casey, Katie Norville, Robert Ince. A singleton is shown 5 3-course menus from people hoping to impress, and must pick 3. They then have a home dinner date with each of the 3, picking their favourite one to date again. The 2 losers make do with a ready meal for one.

“Probably no supposed dating show has a lower success rate than this, in terms of people continuing to date afterwards – maybe 1%? Which just goes to show, we donu0026#39;t care that much about happy endings. Essentially itu0026#39;s people watching – very like Come Dining With Me, except the one-on-one setup means thereu0026#39;s much less irritating showing off.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe soundtrack tells you that the expected audience is significantly older than the 20-something recruitment consultants on most of the shows, and the similarity of menus (and even décor – Union Jack cushions!) is surely no coincidence. The vast majority of people have little or no cooking ability; often a complete dogu0026#39;s dinner miraculously turns into a presentable dish, and we have a standing joke about how itu0026#39;s actually the cameraman who does the cooking. He probably also thinks of the flirtatious phrases for the menus which tend to get the blokes, particularly, so hot under the collar.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe show didnu0026#39;t really find its feet till Natalie Casey took over. Though in the approved Dave Lamb style, her voiceover has its own humour and has got funnier has time has gone on.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNo-one can say itu0026#39;s great art, but itu0026#39;s been reliably watchable for a lot of episodes – good work!”