My New Best friend is one the funniest and sadly one of the most under valued shows of all time. For those who aren't familiar with the premise, a member of the public has to pass off a complete stranger as their new best friend for an entire weekend. They must spend time alone with their new best friend, introduce them to their friends and in most episodes take them to a meal with their family. If they can keep up the pretence at all times they win £10 000. It sound fairly straight forward but the problem is their new best friend is, as the show informs us at the start of each episode, their worst nightmare.
The new best friend is played each week by the wonderful and fearless Marc Wooton who created a different character tailor made for the personality of each contestant.
Episode 1. A real lads lad called Tim has to pretend his new best friend is the super camp Stevie who is also his therapist. There is a fantastic scene at a casino party where Stevie reads out all the things Tim has supposedly said about his friends and his brother. His brother eventually tells Stevie to "F**k off". The episode ends with Tim being made to confess that he is gay to two female friends. This is particularly uncomfortable as the two girls are very understanding but are less than impressed when they find out he only said it to win the money.
Episode 2. A bossy control freak called Tiffany has a paranoid hypochondriac called Daniel enter her world who proceeds tell her friends that they have had cyber sex over the internet. He then proposes to her at a salsa party and is once gain told to "f**k off" by Tiffany's friend. At a pub lunch with her Dad and Sister Daniel announces that he and Tiffany are getting married and are off to live in the Falklands. An odd aspect of this episode is that Tiffany's sister and father are introduced as if they have never met before at the dinner. I've never quite worked out what that was all about.
Episode 3. A very tidy and extremely normal guy called Michael is subjected to a new age hippie called Wicky. This is one of my personal favourites. At a BBQ Wicky pours all the beer for the party down the sink and insists that everybody eats vegetarian. In the middle of the night he keeps going into Michael's bedroom and makes him play a fantasy role play game. The next day he watches Michael play his Sunday game of football and encourages him by shouting "you have the power of a snow leopard Michael" much to his team mates amusement. At a pub lunch he shows Michael's family a picture of a kid who he claims is Michaels.
Episode 4. This is has to be far and away the best episode of the whole series. A really genuine and sweet natured guy called Matt has to put up with a rich arrogant maniac called Sasha. Sasha has him breaking into cars, stealing and deeply offending his friends who eventually just walk out. Matt then has to play a bizarre game of The Grand Old Duke of York marching round and round his coffee table for an hour. Sasha makes up some arbitrary rules about missing out certain words which Matt can't seem to get right. This make Sasha more and more angry and then very upset. Sasha then starts going on about how they are doing it to impress his father and comes out with the classic line, "We can do it, mum's bloody seen us do it". The less said about the end of this episode the better.
Episode 5. Sam is a very cool and wealthy young guy who's new best friend is called Simon who totally hero worships him. Simon starts crying in front of Sam's friends and threatens to commit suicide because he isn't as good as Sam. The episode ends with a very strange conversation between Sam, Sam's mother and Simon. At the end Simon suddenly changes character and pretends to be someone totally different.
Episode 6. This was my least favourite and I only watched it once. A young girl called Emma is almost drawn into pornography and prostitution by a cockney wide boy called Gary. This is actually quite disturbing this episode.
Exactly how Marc Wooton managed to keep up the pretence for a whole weekend is remarkable and he claimed there was only once when he had to leave the room because he couldn't stop laughing. This show was pure class and I think it deserves more recognition. What was particularly interesting was what people were prepared to do for a mere £10 000. On Who Wants to be a Millionaire most people are disappointed if they come away with less than £32 000 for sitting in a chair and answering a few questions. On My New Best Friend they really had to make some serious moral decisions with possibly permanent consequences. Apart from Matt they mostly came over as totally amoral shallow people.
