Reviews Series / Mystery Diners

Not so much real life as reconstruction?

How much of this show is actual as-it-happens footage and how much is reconstructed after the event using actors and a tight script? It just seems too neat and clean to be wholly plausible. And even the people shown up as on the take or crooked must have a right to refuse to allow their footage to be used - it's not as if they've been tried and found guilty in a court of law, after all. How often are their parts played by actors in a reconstruction filmed later? And the bosses/owners sometimes tend to show themselves up as being ethically dubious - Gordon Ramsay, for instance, or Robert Irvine would instantly call them on this. Here, Stiles gives them a bye and glosses over their failings. the automatic presumption appears to be owner = automatically a put-upon honest hard-working angel; all employees = lazy idle incompetent feckless thieving scum. Morality fables artfully presented - nobody with a brain thieves from the till or nicks from the stock as it tends to get noticed. And it's mean. But - ultimately unconvincing. Loved the one where the flaky wedding-cake maker went postal and completely lost it, though! I've worked in kitchens and THAT bit is, if anything, underplayed. Anyone with experience in the biz has seen as bad.