No One Knows This About Me — The Jeremy Kyle Show is my guilty pleasure
It all started when e4 decided to stop showing a double bill of Friends every weekday afternoon between 4 and 5pm — my prime after school TV watching time. For little 13-year-old me this was quite the catastrophe; what show could ever replace Friends? A few flicks through the channels and one programme caught my eye. “The Jeremy Kyle Show? Who is Jeremy? Why does he have his own show?” I thought to myself as I selected it from the channel list. The rest, my friends, is history.
Now I know The Jeremy Kyle show is not everybody’s cup of tea. I mean, there are only so many lie detectors, DNA tests and “at the end of the day”s a person can stomach before it all starts to get a bit much. The arguments and the shouting can be rather headache inducing to the untrained viewer, but after all these years I think I’m immune to it now. It’s all these things that make this show a complete write off for some, but incidentally they are all the reasons I enjoy it. Who doesn’t like a juicy bit of drama at 9am?
If that wasn’t enough, the Jeremy Kyle shows possesses what can only be described as it’s secret weapon. A man that kind find the solution to any problem, a man that provides the crème de la crème of advice and a man that has the ability to deliver the most life devastating news in the most soothing and peaceful voice: Graham. He is everything he is made out to be and more, so no wonder Jeremy’s obsessed with him.
If you thought the Jeremy Kyle show is mainly about the guests, you thought wrong. It very much is, as the name suggests, about the man himself. Whilst Graham gives the reassuring, soothing and comforting advice, Jeremy is all about the tough love. This is particularly clear when he sits on his infamous step ready to scream at 22-year-old Mark from Dagenham to tell him that the money he’s wasting on weed should be going towards his son. He has the ability to make the most arrogant, obnoxious lad whimper ‘sorry Jeremy’ when he gets told off for swearing yet also comfort a distraught young woman when she’s just found out about her partners infidelity. He’s simply good at his job, and for that he has my upmost respect.
I recently found one of my old tweets from when I was 15. It read “I wish I could go and see Jeremy Kyle live”. Little did I know that 5 years down the line that wish was going to come true. Rewind to this time last year I was on a train to Manchester on my way to see a man who I’d only ever gotten to see shout at people through a TV shout at people in real life: and believe you me I was not disappointed. One of the most thrilling things about the experience was being told by the producers that some audience members would potentially be shown on TV, so I made the most of this opportunity by pulling the most exaggerated, over dramatic facial expressions I could muster. My hard work paid off a few weeks later when the show was aired and I caught sight of a familiar looking girl pulling a face of what can only be described as disgust. It was a proud moment. Being in the Jeremy Kyle audience was an experience of many highlights of which I cannot choose just one. Seeing a cheat exposed in front of his girlfriend? Seeing Jeremy shout “put something on the end of it then!”? Given a free Freddo during the interval? Who knows, it was all very fun.
So now you have a clearer picture of why Jeremy Kyle is a guilty pleasure of mine. After all, what other show keeps you on your toes as much as Jeremy Kyle does? You never know what is going to come onto that stage; a woman suspicious her daughter is sleeping with her step dad? A gay couple in need of a DNA test after hearing rumours that they could be brothers? (turns out they were brothers — grim I know) or the JK classic ‘Is my boyfriend sleeping around?’ It’s the show that continues to churn out outrageous entertainment every day of the week without fail. When all is said and done, Jeremy’s thanked you for watching and the end credits are rolling, you know there’s one thing you can count on: Jez will be back tomorrow. He’s always back tomorrow.
