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Dancing on Wheels
Anyone seen the advert for this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pnsnq
Good lord have they got the tone wrong. I mean, the kernal idea isn't that bad. Dance shows are really popular so a sensitive look at how it can empower wheelchair users isn't the worst idea I've heard. Possibly a non-patronising documentary about the Wheelchair Dance Contest, even let a 'Strictly' face present it. But this?
Able bodied people 'learn' to dance with wheelchairs alongside that famous wheelchair enthusiast Brian Fortuna? Even better, it's Jake off Hollyoaks and Martin 'Chariots' Offiah (pun surely unintended?!). Then they're judged by James Jordan and that annoying wheelchair basketballer off kids TV cos he's a famous 'roller'. I can't even comprehend what the creative department must have been taking.
Only the other day I was talking to a mate about how the blind political correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue, was a vanguard for equal opps at the BBC in that he appears to be there on merit rather than through tokenism. He seemed a fine antidote to said basketballer. Oh dear BBC - this could have been an excellent opportunity to highlight how a 'trend' pursuit was empowering disabled people. Instead it's a new low in your glitzy, contrived race to the bottom.
DiScuss.