A few minutes into the opening episode of BBC One’s new Stacey Solomon/Joe Swash fly-on-the-wall documentary Stacey & Joe, the couple were asked to tell us what viewers could expect to see in the six-part series. “Here we are,” replied Joe. “Like it or lump it.”
He didn’t say which one was Like It and which one was Lump It, but, after sitting through this first sixty minute instalment, I think it’s fairly clear what the roles are here.
To be fair, at least poor old Swash’s name did appear above their ducks, Daisy and Delilah, in the opening credits. You can only imagine the horse-trading that took place between his agents and the ducks’ agents before agreement was finally reached on that score. To be honest, the programme’s title should’ve been our first clue about the order of things.
Solomon gets top billing, despite the fact that “Joe & Stacey” patently rolls off the tongue a lot more smoothly than “Stacey & Joe” does. (Go on, say them out loud a few times.)
The truth is that, as far as the BBC is concerned, Solomon is the bigger sell. And boy does she do some selling in this series — or, as Solomon herself explains it, “As well as my TV work, I have brand partnerships.” It may not quite be a full hour-long promotional film for Stacey Solomon Ltd, but if Gary Lineker was to catch any of it he probably wouldn’t be over the moon.
Watch a trailer for Stacey & Joe
Last Summer, Lineker was famously ticked off by his BBC bosses after “appearing to” wear some clothes from his Next fashion range while hosting Euro 2024.
Barely a year later, Solomon is on prime time BBC One flaunting her own fashion range, taking meetings about developing and launching her own perfume, and inviting the BBC cameras along on a family holiday with a well-known tour operator, who (as Stacey openly admitted on social media at the time) had given them “some vouchers” after she’d done some work with them earlier that year.
I won’t say which tour operator it was, but the not-at-all-shoehorned-in close-up of its massive logo as the Solomon-Swash clan boarded the jet 2 (oops!) their destination was a fairly big clue. The BBC will no doubt find a way to explain how this all sits in perfectly well with its presenter guidelines. To which I would say that it perhaps proves once more what a contradictory mess those guidelines must be.
Presumably, the problem the Stacey & Joe production team and the BBC had was that if they hadn’t included Solomon’s extra-curricular activities, they would have struggled to fill six minutes, never mind six hours.
Stacey relaxing with Belle and Rose at home in Stacey & Joe. (Optomen Television/BBC)
Unless of course, your idea of entertainment is watching Joe Swash doing endless school runs or cleaning fresh duck poo from the sofa. Or listening to Swash and Solomon having standard disagreements over parenting and timekeeping. Let’s just say “warts and all” clearly doesn’t mean the same as it did twenty years ago.
Speaking of which, those Solomon sales pitches — sorry, I mean those fascinating insights into the world of brand partnerships — are not the only aspect of this series that calls to mind a certain other celebrity couple’s legendary fly-on-the-wall offering.
Like Solomon and Swash, Katie Price and Peter Andre met in Australia while working on I’m A Celebrity. The blueprints for their respective reality shows are — perhaps worryingly — familiar.
Blended families, a fairytale country mansion populated by hordes of pets and assorted family/hangers-on, luxury holidays, undeniably cute kids, grandparents offering free childcare, one partner doing better career-wise than the other…
Joe and Stacey with Belle, Rose, and Rex. (Optomen Television/BBC)
How gutted the BBC must have been to have missed out on the couple’s wedding in 2022. ITV2 got a whole series out of Katie and Peter’s, erm, lavish nuptials (oi, stop sniggering at the memories!). Here we had to make do with a Paper Anniversary family meal in the grounds of their sweetly-named Pickle Cottage estate instead.
Admittedly, Solomon and Swash did push the boat out by getting the outside caterers in, resplendent in blue hygiene gloves (ooh, the glamour!). It wasn’t exactly pink pumpkin carriages, Cinderella dresses, white three-piece suits and six-foot high wedding cakes though. That’s if it actually was Solomon and Swash’s anniversary on that particular filming day, of course.
Stacey & Joe takes viewers inside their family life at Pickle Cottage. (Optomen Television/Elisabeth Hoff/BBC)
Obviously, I’m not suggesting that it feels like there’s a bit of staging and/or cutting room magic going on in this show. Nevertheless, I am mildly curious to find out how, according to this episode’s timeline, Stacey found out about her National TV Awards nominations before the family went on that holiday to Turkey. A quick cross check of August 2024’s top showbiz news tells me that the NTAs shortlists were revealed after they’d departed for Antalya.
Unless the NTAs organisers tip the nominees the wink before the lines for the final stage of voting are even open these days, of course. Yeah, I suppose that must be it. Given the lack of stardust content elsewhere, the decision to cover Solomon’s awards show journey was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, it did unwittingly serve to highlight the fact that much of this series has an ‘old news’ feel to it.
Stacey Solomon with the cast of Sort Your Life Out at the National Television Awards in September, 2024 when they may or may not have won an award. No spoilers here. (PA Images via Getty Images)
Solomon already shares so much of her life with her nine million-plus social media followers, there’s every chance that the BBC’s target audience — her fans — will have seen a lot of this footage already. In fact, on more than one occasion in this first episode we witness the bizarre spectacle of a BBC crew filming Stacey as she films updates for her Instagram account.
That’s the modern media world, of course. However, it kind of makes a mockery of the BBC’s proud boasts that for this series Solomon and Swash are “throwing open the doors of Pickle Cottage and inviting you in” as if it’s some major exclusive.
Still, nice of you to finally join the party, BBC. Come on in. Mind the duck poo.
P.S.: I should warn viewers that episode two reveals whether Stacey and/or Sort Your Life Out did in fact win at the NTAs seven months ago. No spoilers from me here — I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.
Stacey & Joe airs on BBC One at 8pm on Tuesday, 1 April, and will stream on BBC iPlayer.