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Living The Dream
 
You know the unpleasant feeling of being the only one who doesn't know what's going on? And you hate it, not even knowing that something *is* going on? Well, Sam Chambers from Hawke's Bay is in exactly this situation. Each Tuesday at 8.30 p.m. in the increasingly popular reality show Living The Dream on TV 2 he is part of a group he takes for ordinary candidates of a Big Brother-like show. What Sam doesn't know: except for him, all participants are actors and almost everything that happens has been written before in a script. Almost. Because to the producer's great chagrin (and the audience's fun) Sam's a little too attentive, spoiling their plans again and again. Writing the script must be a very hectic job sometimes...
 

In this parody of a Reality Show, Mark plays himself, so to say, doing his best to do a spoof of his own work as host of Big Brother a few years ago. Sometimes too successful, as comments in various forums prove - there his 'bad manners' are taken a little too serious.

Sam, the 'good, fine Kiwi bloke' is already very popular: he's friendly, a good mate, has wits and behaves very knightly towards the Ladies, for example protecting Mary-the-Virgin's honour against the advances of the host Mark, whom he described as 'smooth like a gravy sandwich', much to our great amusement and satisfaction. Bravo, Sam! Well played, Mark!
You *did* play that, didn't you? ;)

To make it even worse (for Mark) the script-writers have had some very nasty ideas for his character. The usual challenges often include clothing that reaches new level of silliness in each episode - appearing like a copy of Monet, with beret and moustache, may be okay, but a bee-suit is less practical. And the bondage gear from Episode five...you get my point. Not to mention the dressing down he 'received' by one of the TV stations executives in episode seven.

Or, to say it in Mark's own words: "It's the most ulcer-inducing show I've ever been involved in."

Sam's 'contestants' were:

Mark Ferguson 'The Smarmy Host'
(Sam would like to vote him off, undoubtedly)
Jeremy Birchall
 'Billy the Gay Guy' (voted off)
Victoria Blackman 'Mary the Virgin' (voted off)
Kirsty Cooke
 'Betty the New Age Flake' (voted off)
Jason Fitch
 'Mick the Prick'
Stephen Hall
 'Mule the former SAS Soldier' (voted off)
Charlie McDermott
 'Ben the Best Mate'
Awanui Simich-Pene
 'Rima the Schemer' (voted off)
Sarah Thomson 'Tiffany the Rich Bitch' (voted off)
   
Production Company Touchdown Productions


After the filming had been completed Mark said, he's been very happy Sam hadn't kicked him…

Photos, Screams and Painting...

TVNZ provided the audience with several short clips from the show:

Autographs (.wmv, 6 MB)
Carrots (.wmv, 2,8 MB)
Injury (.wmv, 3,7 MB)
Painting (.wmv, 1 MB)
all files courtesy of Touchdown Television New Zealand and TVNZ


Recommended links

TV Two

Living the Dream Homepage

Tv Tome Living the Dream infos

 

Articles

New Zealand Herald "The Untrue Man Show"
New Zealand Listener "Get Real"
MyTown.co.nz "Reality show sets up Sam but, crickey, he's no mug"
Stuff.co.nz "Reality TV's fine young cannibal"

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last update: 3 Februar, 2005