Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime

The Jeremy Kyle Show was cancelled in 2019 by ITV after 14 years on air. It was prompted by the death of Steve Dymond, who killed himself a few days after appearing on it.

The show was never broadcast. Soon after the cancellation there were comments made by former guests and production crew about just what a bear pit the show was.

How guests were manipulated to make themselves angry or over excited on television.

The production team were always under pressure to find shocking stories and guests that made good television.

The show was described as conflict resolution. Kyle provided tough love and lie detection tests. It was never stated that lie detection tests were unreliable. They were 60-70 percent accurate.

This Channel 4 documentary garnered good newspaper reviews. It talked to friends and family of several guests of the Jeremy Kyle show as well as former crew members.

There was unbroadcast footage of Kyle snarling at the studio audience. He seemed to have little time for addicts and chavs.

The latter is unsurprisingly. Kyle had a privileged upbringing. His father was a long time personal secretary to the Queen Mother. He went to a fee paying school. I guess Kyle knew little about people in actual poverty.

The former though he had experience of. He was once a gambling addict, it led to splitting up with his first wife after accumulating large debts. You would have thought Kyle would have more empathy.

As for the network that broadcast the show. ITV were happy with the gladiatorial format. As long as the show got ratings and attracted publicity, they turned a blind eye as to what happened behind the scenes.

The executives knew just how this kind of television shows were made. They quickly washed their hands off it when Dymond's death was reported. It was a tragedy that was waiting to happen. The surprise is that it did not happen years earlier.

As for this documentary. It was not that good. There was nothing here that was previously published in the newspapers or featured in discussion shows.

The second part was unintentionally hilarious in a Spinal Tap sort of the way.

A padded documentary featuring the tragedy of several former guests. A former drug addict who was exploited by Kyle to make good television. There is footage of Kyle shouting at her and calling her names.

She got drug rehab paid by the production crew but she later relapsed. I doubt the show could be held responsible for that. Kyle's attitude is unedifying though.

A two part documentary series, that looks at the behind the scenes goings on, the people, and sudden axing of the Jeremy Kyle show.

Many people will have strong opinions, a show you either loved or hated, personally I loved it, ridiculous entertainment, I always assumed there was a hell of a lot of play acting, from guests and presenter alike, from a good background, he was there to put on a show.

I take issue with one point, this documentary is criticising the show for exploiting some of society's vulnerable people, this does just that, some of what you'll hear is a little bizarre, definitely very sad, the show did take advantage of some, but if anyone claimed they were going into this blind, I don't accept that. We don't learn anything that's surprising here, Jeremy had an enormous ego, he screams, shouts, rants and raves, has issues with those that don't work etc, I didn't think any of this was news.

The behind the scenes stuff is surprising, shocking almost, the death of Steve Diamond is of course tragic. One commentator states that the guests were all innocent, do me a favour, people saw an opportunity to appear on TV, scream and shout, and air their views.

Definite exploitation, but to say that it was all one way traffic, that's just wrong, this at times feels a little holier than thou, surely the 20000 people that appeared weren't all that naive?

6/10.

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

For fourteen years, The Jeremy Kyle Show was one of the top rated daytime talk shows, becoming a household name, of sorts. With his "straight talking, no nonsense" style, Kyle offered his (albeit unqualified) advice to a host of poor, socio-economically deprived guests, desperate for counselling and support, or just hoping for five minutes of cheap fame, with the support of his therapist sidekick Graham Stanier, and an aftercare support team. But it all came to a crashing halt in 2019 when a guest called Stephen Diamond committed suicide after failing a lie detector test, leading to its permanent cancellation. In this two part documentary, a series of people who worked behind the scenes lift the lid on the shocking truth of the underhand tactics that went on to make the show happen.

It's hard to comprehend now that not so long ago TJKS was, undeniably, a British institution. It had a fixed place in the pop culture of modern Britain ("he looks like someone off Jeremy Kyle...", you might hear someone say), but then it's also an interesting reflection of a shifting cultural attitude in Britain, toward people on the lower end of the social scale and their circumstances (the type of people with bad teeth, tattoos all down their arm, pockmarked faces that people *all of us at one time or another* liked to make fun of.) I don't know whether ratings were starting to drop towards the end of its run (but then, it had a consistent audience, mainly unemployed people who Kyle ironically might have told to 'get a job'), but I did feel it had started to wear out its welcome one way or the other. Sadly, it actually took the tragic death of a man for this to come to pass, and now, this documentary delves in to the behind the scenes workings that kept the devilish wagons of the show rolling.

It always struck me how an admittedly unqualified man was someone who would be turned to for advice on such sensitive issues for individuals, especially when he often spoke to people so disrespectfully and ignorantly, and this documentary reveals some secret, never before heard audio and studio recordings revealing just what an obnoxious, unpleasant jerk Kyle really was, saying what he feels to audience members, production staff and about guests unrestrained and without filter. It's clear his hideous show was always about his own self-aggrandisement ("...see that, it's called The Jeremy Kyle Show!!!", as he would often tell guests), and the offer of counselling was usually an act of desperation, since it's so hard to access for people on the lower end of the social strata. And so we hear of how guests were made to compete with other guests, being told there was only space available for one family, when there really wasn't, and how perfectly reasonable people were riled up, and poked and prodded by the crew to make them angry when they arrived on stage (most notoriously the infamous 'head butting' incident.) Most shockingly of all, we learn of the horrific inaccuracy of the 'lie detector tests', and how they are not relied on in court, and how this played a key part in the poor man's death.

Kyle now has a shadow of his former star quality as a host on Talk TV, along with a host of other uninformed, reactionary mouthpieces, but the legacy of his repulsive TV show is a glaring disparity between the haves and have nots in society, and something that must never be forgotten so it is never repeated. ****

Just those opening seconds seeing Jeremy Kyle speak to the audience like that shows what kind of man he is. Disgusting. I cannot watch anymore clips like that, let alone actors pretending to be the staff whose voices they are using. The show was cancelled 14 years and one death too late if it was treating everyone involved like Jeremy's doormat.

The Jeremy Kyle was nothing all that new when it first aired back in 2005, having essentially been the replacement for the similarly themed Trisha that had preceded it. It had been a watered-down version of The Jerry Springer Show in the U. S.. Although the baton was handed to Kyle after Trisha ended, he adopted a more confrontational and aggressive way of handling his guests than Trisha Goddard. Who as opposed to him took a more laid-back, semi-objective approach. And then for fourteen years, guests with personal issues and grievances with friends, relatives, etc. Would be wheeled onto the show in front of a baying audience, who it wouldn't be uncharitable at times to be called idiots. Who like those who would regularly tune in would sit and watch as guests would get into verbal onslaughts, with Kyle wading in and giving his two cents. And like a gladiatorial arena, this was for the entertainment of its spectators.

It wasn't until the death of Steve Dymond from an apparent suicide, who had previously been a guest on the show that due to the media backlash against the show in the wake of it, the show was ultimately canceled. And not before long. What this documentary attempts to lift the lid on, and largely succeeds in doing so is the dishonesty, and the exploitative culpability of the show's producers, as well as ITV who broadcast the series. Past guests on the show as well as former employees who worked on it, give their accounts of the unsavory and morally questionable methods, the show's producers would implement to coax guests onto the series. This was with the promise to offer professional support and care to those who appeared on it.

Of course, this raises the immediate question as to how exploitative the show was given that the guests had agreed to appear on the show. After all, it would be extremely naive to think that not one of Kyle's guests was aware of the nature of it, and Kyle's, brash and overbearing style. But then it does beg the issue of vulnerability, as well as the mental health of some of them. Particularly as it pertains to the outcome of the much-vaunted lie detector tests, where the potential mental or emotional instability of those taking them may affect the outcome. The fact that some critics of this documentary are wilfully ignoring the point, that the documentary clearly makes is very telling, in so much that there are fans of the series who don't seem to care about the lives it may be ruining, so long as they can get their dose of inane, bear baiting drivel. That having been said, I question the motives behind those who used to work for the series, and how they couldn't have been aware of how much they were getting their hands dirty. One of the former production team goes so far as to say, that she doesn't believe the series ever helped anyone, although I have to begrudgingly admit that it did indeed do so, as there have been former guests who have said that it did. One therefore wonders if she hasn't got her own axe to grind against the show's producers, and Isn't out to get her own pound of flesh. In this respect, I think the documentary does lose some of its objectivity, and let's its clear bias show.

This being said the fact that a former cameraman who blew the whistle on the show and had concerns over the emotional distress of one of the show's male guests is more than enough to raise a few eyebrows. Not forgetting that one of the show's producers during an inquest into the ethical actions of the show, outright claimed that the lie detector tests were 100% accurate, only to then backtrack, and concede this not to be the case after being challenged on the veracity of his assertion.

Admittedly though, when it comes to the suicide of of one of the young producers, Natasha Reddican after the series ended. I find it possibly hard to have much sympathy for her, over the alleged guilt, that her ex-fellow employees have claimed that she had for the lives she was complicit in helping to ruin. Especially, as her suicide happened after the series ended, and she lost her job. Was she not aware of what she was doing while still employed with ITV? It's here that the documentary kind of loses me because let's not forget the suicides and lives crushed of those whom she was partly responsible for.

As for Kyle himself, we get painted a picture of a man who is as irksome, as the one I found him to be on his TV show. One with a transparent God complex, who lords over the proceedings of his show with smarm and arrogance that is borderline narcissistic. One wonders, if a man who had a privileged upbringing (his father was an accountant and personal secretary to the Queen Mother), and has since gone on to have a successful career in broadcasting, could truly relate or have any empathy towards people, who did not have the same social upbringing as he did. With practically all of his guests, and dare I say most of his viewers coming from working-class backgrounds.

Channel 4, overall presents a damning picture of the show, which was rightfully axed, and whose producers should be held accountable for their actions. Even if it Isn't as entirely objective, and a bit too one-sided, it still offers enough damning evidence that convinces me that when the plug was finally pulled on it, it was long overdue.