Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Gameshow God?

The entire world is going "talent show" crazy right now.

On any given night its almost impossible to find a half-decent gritty police drama about a slightly maverick detective with a quirky habit, or a programme about man-eating sharks because our TV screens are now full of ..

"Pop Stars"
"Soap Stars Sing Songs from The Musicals"
"Sports Personalities re-Paint the Old Masters"
"Politicians From Rival Parties do the 2 man Skeleton Bobsled - Naked!"

All these programmes - despite being almost uniformly crap - remorselessly continue to attract a huge audience.

So, as is the law with all "trends", how long until some young, wannabe luvvy but sadly misguided vicar from an inner city parish in the Midlands or North of England latches onto this phenomenon and looks to see how he can harness the cultural zeitgeist to generate increased church attendance from the "yoof" of today?

This would mean that the Trinity of The Father, Son & Holy Ghost gets replaced by "The Jury".

Those who die and go to heaven are introduced by a vaguely familiar St Peter (who you can't help feeling isn't quite as good as Ant & Dec would have been be at this whole "welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven" malarkey) to The Jury.

The Jury consists of a bland non-committal older God who tries in vain to strike a balance between a relentlessly positive middle-aged over-botoxed female Jesus, and a camp, bitchy yet brutally honest Holy Ghost who's every utterance is greeted by a chorus of boos from the watching choir of Chav-angels with Burberry harps who have been bussed in to provide a hooting Springer-style audience.

For those who pass the initial Jury, its not over - there is 12 more weeks of waiting whilst your numbers are slowly whittled down by a weekly global pray-in, on the basis of how many good deeds and how few sins you can commit - live, in front of a studio audience - whilst your family and friends all print up t-shirts with your dead yet peaceful face on it

And for those who go to hell, a dreadful, terrible fate awaits. An interview on the sofa on ITV2 with Mark Durden Smith and a 2 week window of opportunity to be seen in Heat Magazine.
Repent I tell you, whilst you still have time, Repent!





No comments: