“When I see fried chicken shops in an area it really worries me,” said Hertfordshire-born Mary Portas as she surveyed the wreckage of a town that is Rochdale on last night's Mary Queen of Shops.
Cue shots of shuttered-up shops and tracksuited, pallid people pushing buggies through torrential rain (with no job to go to, was the implication in Portas’ narration) and smoking fags under grey, baleful skies.
Before residents of Rochdale angrily besiege the comments board, though, it’s obvious that the dastardly producers would do their level best to make Rochdale look like an episode of Shameless set in the Gaza Strip. No doubt an hour’s worth of footage was edited down to a 30-second sequence of the town’s lowlights. Anyone vaguely healthy-looking and any shops that a Maida Vale resident like Portas might frequent were surely omitted. And I’m sure it doesn’t always rain in Rochdale.
In contrast to so many others on these kind of programmes, John put his ego to one side from the outset and was completely receptive to constructive criticism
London-style salon
But the staggering revelation that three quarters of residents in the town rely on benefits threw into sharp relief the prices charged by the latest business person subjected to Portas’ retail shock therapy. Hairdresser John Peers said he had wanted to bring a London-style salon to Rochdale but, suggested Portas, it was a 90s London salon with noughties London prices. It's one thing to charge £60 a haircut in Primrose Hill but quite another to do so in Rochdale following the deepest recession since the 1930s.
Portas decided that John should strive to be the Topshop of hair salons, bringing high fashion but at high-street prices. Among the tasks to which John was assigned was to advise shoppers in a clothes shop what outfits would suit them, thus sharpening his fashion antennae and encouraging him to learn to listen to his customers.
He wasn’t very good at this, Portas believed, and her argument was apparently supported when he based a choice of dress for one customer on her “beautiful green eyes”. “They’re actually brown,” she said. “A lovely greeny-brown,” he continued, undeterred. “No, they’re actually really deep brown,” she insisted.
But John was a seriously nice guy, enthusiastic and, in contrast to so many others on these kind of programmes (particularly Angela Maher, the intransigent baker), put his ego to one side from the outset and was completely receptive to constructive criticism. At the end of a day’s fashion shoot set up to get some pictures of his signature hairstyles for the salon he got quite emotional, so overcome was he at his reinvigoration under Portas’ guidance.
