Peter Hitchens Goes to Prison

A review.

Is there anything better than reality TV?

It’s so good. On a (rare) night off I can easily bash through an entire season of Selling Sunset, or Selling the OC, or basically anything involving attractive people of extremely poor character shouting at each other about nothing.

Obviously I feel awful afterwards. I didn’t say it was good for you, just that it is good. It’s like cocaine for introverts.

An equally addictive, if far more grim, offering in the reality genre is Banged Up: Stars Behind Bars, on Channel 4.

As an elevator pitch, it’s hard to beat ‘Peter Hitchens goes to prison and tells violent criminals his views on drug addiction’.

And that was indeed how it went down. With the caveat that the prison wasn’t strictly real, but recreated for the show, with security on hand at all times. The cast, however, were genuine ex-cons, and genuinely scary.