Trinny & Susannah: From Boom To Bust

Can Trinny and Susannah win back our hearts?

Trinny and Susannah once ruled makeover TV - will From Boom to Bust see them regain that crown?

Trinny & Susannah - From Boom To Bust Review

Their pilot used jokes, characters and actors from The Thick Of It, Nathan Barley and Brass Eye, with Trinny and Susannah as the protagonists (any of the fading stars in the show could have taken the role). Unless you are a big fan of these two fashion gurus (which you're probably not otherwise they would still be famous) then you should watch the aforementioned shows, which will be remembered as classic TV productions. Fashion fades only style remains.

There's actually more bum than boom on display in this very revealing fly-on-the-wall documentary. If it's not Susannah Constantine modelling flesh-coloured control knickers at a trade show, it's Trinny Woodall flashing her thong at the camera or having her bum cheeks slapped during one of her regular massage sessions.

The girls have promised this film will show viewers what they're really like and what we learn straight off is that they've got a better sense of humour than you might have given them credit for - because none of this is real. A few die-hard fans of the bap-grabbing fashionistas might have already seen this mockumentary when it was aired online in bite-size instalments.

Here, Channel 4 have cannily repackaged it into an hour-long show and it works surprisingly well. It plays on their desperate attempts to get back on to our TV screens any which way they can after getting dumped by their agent and losing a lucrative contract with Cillit Bang cleaning products.

"Your problem is you're too honest," one talent agent tells them. "You want to look at that Chinese woman. The big tall one with the bins on. He'll tell someone who's an absolute munter they look the bollocks." As well as some Gok Wan rivalry, there's an attempted makeover on some jockeys and lots of their celebrity chums playing themselves - including Lulu, Vanessa Feltz and David Furnish - plus a surprising cameo from Prince Edward.

15 years. 15 YEARS?! Trinny and Susannah were on telly 15 years? How did we get so old? Now they're trying to get back on it. Earlier this year they posted a series of bite-size episodes of a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary on t'internet about their fall from grace. It was a huge hit but Channel 4 has been wise enough to realise we're unlikely to make a weekly episodic commitment to their cause, so they've whittled the footage into one hour-long chunk for us. The only problem is that really it works better in 15-minute slices. Still, you can see their problem.

Anyway, From Boom To Bust offers up some real moments of gold: there's the likeably wince-inducing agent Toby, some terrific swearing from the fashion duo, which is both big and clever, and Trinny gets her bum massaged a lot.

Putting the boob-grabbing former queens of TV on Curb-style mockumentary seems as godawful an idea as Monkey Tennis or Robson Green's Extreme Fishing (which actually happened).

Yet this bizarre, sometimes hilarious show works unexpectedly well, with the pair squabbling and squawking, bemoaning Gok Wan's popularity and plumbing the depths of celebrity endorsement.

Once the high priestesses of makeover TV and initially watchable despite their 'tell-it-like-it-is' rudeness, we find Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine attempting to recapture former glories in From Boom to Bust (see what they did there with the title?)

In Thursday's opener, the fashionistas gunned for a return to the limelight in the shape of a Cillit Bang ad only for their decline on the celebrity stock market to torpedo the deal and lose the duo their longstanding agent.

Rent-a-celebs such as Lulu and Dr Fox popped up as talking heads and familiar comedians including Katy Wix (Not Going Out) and Nicholas Burns (Nathan Barley) portrayed Trinny and Susannah's long-suffering staff.

At an hour, it was a little too long to sustain the joke but with teetotal Trin and Chardonnay-quaffing Suze impressively game for self-parody, it might be the vehicle they need to knock Gok off the makeover perch.

Remember Trinny and Susannah? They were all the rage at the turn of the century - mauling women's breasts and telling them to wear proper bras. A money-spinning move to ITV followed, no one watched, Gok Wan became the nation's new makeover supremo and they've been quiet ever since.

Until now. Trinny & Susannah: From Boom To Bust (C4) was a spoof doc that acknowledged the duo's slump into TV limbo - charting their antics as they're dumped by their agent and try to get another programme deal. The mockumentary is a well-worn format and we'd seen it all before, the David Brent-esque faux egomania, tantrums and the attention-hungry celebs making random cameos.

There were several laughs to be had, though. Susannah showed a natural talent for playing a mentally unravelling borderline alcoholic and there were amusing digs at their showbiz chums. When, after losing a Cilit Bang advertising deal, the pair are seen crying in a shed, Trinny greets the news that David Furnish is popping round with an exasparated: 'Could this day get any f***ing worse?'

Meanwhile, their supposed new shows, Walk Tall With Trinny And Susannah, in which they made over jockeys, and Get A Leg Up With Trinny And Susannah, in which they found 'real-life unemployed people' jobs, nicely satirised the increasing desperation of TV documentary formats. It was a fun way of raising their profiles but difficult to see where it was leading. Is TV ready for a genre-mangling mockumentary makeover series? Stay tuned!

Trinny and Susannah: From Boom to Bust review

A thick cloud of self-satisfaction hung over the whole venture, kept aloft by appearances from celebrity chums such as David Furnish and Lulu.

Trinny And Susannah review

As they crash, moan, wail and stomp around, displaying a quite worrying readiness to flash bits of themselves, it turns out they are pretty good actors, or at least do an excellent job of keeping their faces straight. Although, given Woodall is an unashamed Botox regular, this is perhaps not as difficult as otherwise might have been.

Trinny and Susannah interview

Trinny and Susannah poke fun at themselves - and at the TV industry - in a spoof documentary about their lives. First shown online, it now airs on C4.

Trinny and Susannah interview

Fashion queens Trinny and Susannah on why they're turning the spotlight on themselves in new TV show...