{"id":353541,"date":"2025-08-18T06:36:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/353541\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:36:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:36:16","slug":"as-the-only-way-is-essex-turns-15-what-made-it-so-successful-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/353541\/","title":{"rendered":"As The Only Way is Essex turns 15, what made it so successful?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">TV critic Emma Bullimore says Towie paved the way in the &#8220;constructed reality&#8221; genre on British television, building on the success of The Hills, a reality show set in Los Angeles that aired its final episode earlier in 2010.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was a confusing concept,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These were real people, living real lives and conducting genuine relationships, but the directors of the show would give ideas for &#8216;scenes&#8217;, or steer the contributors in particular directions to create drama.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bullimore recalls going to the press launch for the first series at a cocktail bar with loud music, a far cry from most premieres held in a theatre or screening room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There was a real buzz and a feeling that this show would change the TV landscape, which indeed it did.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She puts its success down to the show&#8217;s portrayal of Essex stereotypes &#8211; full of glitzy outfits, fake tans and big hair &#8211; a method which &#8220;inspired countless copycat versions set in different parts of the UK&#8221; like Made in Chelsea and Geordie Shore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TV critic Emma Bullimore says Towie paved the way in the &#8220;constructed reality&#8221; genre on British television, building&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-353541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115048388147373519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}