The 90s docusoaps craze.

[AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta]

Inspired by a thread about old telly shows got me thinking about the 90s docusoaps and my god there were so many of them.

The Cruise (which gave us the fab Jane McDonald)
Holiday Reps
Airport
Hotel
Lakesiders.
Vets in practice.
Driving school.

It all seems so random now, I know the shows documenting the emergency services shows are still popular these days but I cannot imagine now sitting down watching someone's day working in a department store or taking their driving lesson. But me and 10 million other people used to do just that. Different times!

I used to love Ladettes to Ladies but I can’t remember whether it was 90s or later. The “ladettes” usually seemed good fun but often one ended up in tears having had a good heart-to-heart with Rosemary Schrager (sp) during which she traced the problematic - and indeed sometimes self-destructive - behaviour to a difficult childhood or similar.

I know!! Sorry for forcing the realisation onto you too. I wouldn't mind but it was all so much better then 😭

Yes! I was a student in Manchester at the time.

Aww glad to have helped 😊. I wish they'd do a where are they now style program about the shows. They did a few years ago that are floating around YouTube. Think they looked back on Lakesiders and Airport. I just remember one of the paparazzi fellas who used to haunt the airport snapping celebs catching flights was trying to reinvent himself as a rockstar...I don't think it took off for him 🤭

Oh and apparently the footage of the manageress from the Adelphi hotel is now used in training videos to demonstrate how not to talk to people 😮.

We found ourselves watching Outback Truckers the other night, and after first thinking "this must be really boring, watching blokes drive lorries for an hour" we were still glued to it until the end!

Ice Road Rescue is good too.

I used to like the animal ones in the 90s, like Pet Rescue.

Me too! Happy days!

The Darbar had a banner up about it for years afterwards!

I could totally believe that about the Adelphi hotel manageress and the staff training video she was something else. So scary.

A rockstar 🤣 wonder what he's up to now. A where are they now catch up program would be great to watch.

Apparently there was one set on a health farm, which I never saw but wish I had because it sounds bloody amazing 😂.

The docu-soap that could have been a PR disaster for health farm boss Stephen Perdue, who in 1998 had ploughed millions into building a new state of the art health farm. But the builders hadn't finished and the guests were arriving - it was chaos captured on camera. The celebrity guests thought they were in pampering paradise; the staff thought they were in Fawlty Towers.

Yes, it was, thank you. Apologies if it had been mentioned already.

I absolutely loved this. Mark was basically the Alan Partridge of hoteliers.

I loved all of these and still try and seek them out when I can. The salon was a brilliant one x

I liked the one about the couple that ran the scrap yard

@catin8oots that one is fab I rewatched it just recently .

That was a hotel in Torquay, he was a nightmare!

I also remember the health spa one, particularly a scene where they were "interviewing" massage therapists in a really sleazy way....perhaps what's put me off ever having a massage!

There was one following young women who were Nannies for families abroad. I only remember it because one of the women had been DHs childhood girlfriend.

Filmed near me. That was a good one though, I learned quite a lot off it.

I enjoyed Rail Cops, having worked on the railway a lot of the situations and people were very familiar. Still remember Maggie, a lovely Scottish copper, firmly telling a drunk foreign tourist he couldn't urinate onto the train tracks from a platform at Glasgow Central.

May have already been mentioned and don’t think it was actually 90s, more 2000s, but there was a couple of series probably called The Hotel or something, following people checking into a hotel and the hotel staff. One being called the Damson Dene. Think in the Lake District. Absolutely loved that series!

I think I might remember the same show. I remember one episode where two young British girls went to act as housekeepers for an older single man I think in America. It pretty soon became apparent that he fancied Friend One and sacked Friend Two demanding that she leave.

Understandably it caused a bit of a rift in the friendship and at the end it was revealed that Friend One and he were engaged. I sometimes wonder how that worked out for them although I think I could probably guess!
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I recall that they were somewhere in Europe, but that’s all.

Ladette to lady

Well, I'd never seen this. My username is nothing to do with it.