Sandra Harris Writes

  JERRY SPRINGER: FIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! BY SANDRA HARRIS. © ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry…!’ I remember one time late in the ‘Nineties, my then boyfriend said to me: ‘You’ll never believe what I saw on television last night. It was this American talk show, right, but the guests were knocking seven bells out of each other and the audience members were going wild, meanwhile, the host was just standing there grinning and letting it all happen…! You have to watch this with me when it’s on again!’ And of course I did, and of course the programme was the Jerry Springer Show, and the laid-back host who fiddled while Rome burned was the eponymous Jerry Springer, the man who more or less single-handedly invented what we now call ‘trash TV.’ This was TV that concentrated on the more controversial or sensationalist topics out there rather than the boring or sensible ones, and, from 1991 to 2018, Jerry Springer was the undisputed king of trash TV. The guests were often of the ‘poor w...

  PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, THIS MORNING AND THAT WHOLE KETTLE OF FISH. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Things are not exactly tickety-boo for former ITV presenter Phillip Schofield at the moment. In fact, May has really been the month from hell for the silver-haired sixty-one-year-old who has spent the last twenty years presenting ITV’s flagship television show, THIS MORNING. Firstly, his relationship with his THIS MORNING co-host Holly Willoughby was reported in the media as being ‘on the rocks,’ even though she’d supposedly been his Numero Uno support after he ‘came out’ as gay on the programme in 2020, after twenty-seven years of marriage.   Then, after weeks of intensifying rumours and speculation, Schofield steps down from his THIS MORNING presenting role, followed a few days later by his statement admitting to his affair with ‘a younger male colleague,’ as a result of which he’s stepping down from ITV permanently. He won’t present the upcoming British Soap Awards, and I presume th...