Lucy Benjamin - Dancercise

I have spent most of today learning about practical version control and building an SVN Repository. Because I’m doing a computing degree and that’s the kind of fun and exciting weekends I have. I like to kick back and create a repository, commit a few changes, create a tag here, a branch there, generate the occasional repository log message file until I start to slip into a tedium-induced coma and have to keep myself awake by plashing my skull repeatedly against the keyboard.

And then the face in my computer tells me to stop

And you know what the dullest part of my day was? The hour and a half I spent doing Lucy Benjamin’s Dancercise workout.

You may think that staring at a command screen until your eyeballs throb is tedious but seriously, try Lucy and trainer Fitz’s method of keeping fit by leaping to the side, stepping to the front and *clap!* repeated 5000 times. The entire DVD was like an endlessly repeating 3 second gif.

This is honestly all there is to it.

It doesn’t really help that there aren’t any proper separate sections. There are no scene or costume changes between the intriguingly named Workout 1 and Workout 2. There isn’t even a jingle or a fancy title graphic to break up the monotony. I originally quite liked Lucy’s pink joggers and wrap-around cardi. It seems like everyone’s been doing these DVDs in skimpy pants recently and I appreciated Lucy taking a more comfy approach. My enthusiasm waned after a while although I do respect her devotion to leisurewear.

The music is baffling and doesn’t add to the illusion that this is supposed to be a fun dance session. Most of it sounds like a TV theme tune. I kept feeling like they were actual proper programmes that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. One was a bit like Black Beauty and another was a bit like Hill Street Blues though neither is anywhere near as good as the originals. I imagine someone was commissioned at short notice to provide the theme music for a daytime TV show about farming or antiques or dogging or something and it got cancelled at the last minute. In which case it’s nice to know that they found some use for the music after all.

Lucy Benjamin is obviously most famous for playing the consistently miserable Lisa in Eastenders. She is part of the elite group of workout-releasing ex-Eastenders actors and features on CLCW's handy knowledge sheet.

Lucy’s early acting CV is even more impressive. Her very first TV role was on Doctor Who, for goodness sakes. Admittedly, it was only a couple of seconds long but Doctor Who! When the Doctor looked like Peter Davison!

80s style clothes of the future

You wouldn’t think you could top that but Lucy only went to star in Press Gang! Third person in the credits, no less, after Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher.

I have resisted the urge to watch any Press Gang clips on YouTube because it’s ever so slightly possible that the show isn’t quite the epitome of unparalleled awesomeness that it is in my head. I was also concerned that I might fancy Spike as much as I did at the time and that fancying a teenager would make me feel grubby. Surprisingly, it turns out that Dexter Fletcher was in his mid-twenties when he played Spike. I can scarcely believe it. The man’s clearly an acting genius.

This was all I wanted in a man when I was 14. It still might be.

Lucy is currently performing in Hairspray as Velma Von Tussle. We can only hope that this keeps her far too busy to make any more workout DVDs.

Best Bit
Lucy’s fitness instructor is an enthusiastic gentleman called Fitzroy Gaynes. When Fitz wants us to take notice of a new move he’s going to demonstrate he gives us the ‘Visuals’ sign so we can all pay attention. This involves framing his eyes with v-shaped fingers. It’s like being given dancing instructions by Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction.

No wait a minute, it’s nothing like that. Vince Vega dancing lessons would be awesome. Although there might be the risk of accidentally snorting some heroin during the cool-down.

Worst Bit
Aside from the crappy workouts and the crappy music, there is unsurprisingly a crappy DVD extra. Here, Lucy has her face moisturised and massaged by a beautician where they discuss what Beauty treatments plebs like us might be able to do at home. Honey face masks and putting tea bags on eyes are mentioned. There’s nothing like having beauty recommendations made by someone who clearly isn’t going to try what they’re suggesting.

"As long as we keep talking I can claim this on expenses"

Difficulty Level
Well it’s dancing which makes it inherently difficult for me but it’s shit dancing so that helps a lot.

Sometimes you have to dance like nobody's watching. 

This is not one of those times.

Would I do this workout again?
No. There is almost nothing to redeem this DVD at all. At the end of the workouts, Lucy suggests that we invite our friends round to do this workout with us. She demonstrates this by having a few of her friends join in the next bit. In a twist on the classic line, Lucy says  “if they can do this, anyone can.” which seems a wee bit insulting to her friends.

You are all much more shit than me

Don’t get too excited about the friends workout by the way: they repeat one of the earlier workouts rather than do a new one and the whole thing lasts about 30 measly seconds.

So, no offence, Lucy but I really don’t think I’ll be inviting any of my friends round to do your workout any time soon. I’d sooner invite them round to build back-up version control repositories with me

Vicky Entwistle – Weight Off Workout

After last week’s Hollyoaks workout, now it’s Coronation Street’s turn. CLCW is clearly on a mission to prove that Eastenders doesn’t hold the monopoly on soap star related fitness DVDs.

Unlike Eastenders which takes place amongst the civilised postcodes of the South East of England, Coronation Street is set in the grim North and is full of characters who train whippets, make hotpots and speak as they find. Probably. Despite it being the world's longest-running TV soap opera in production, I’ve never actually watched an episode and have extrapolated all my understanding of the show from its theme music.

This week’s celebrity played Janice Battersby , the street’s loudmouth factory worker. Is there are a more northern-sounding name than Janice Battersby?

Well, yes there is. Vicky Entwistle. The name of the actress who played her.

Entwistle. Entwistle. It’s great, isn’t it? “Get Entwistle over t’mill. One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treddle.”

Occasionally Coronation Street required her to dress as the Queen

Vicky Entwistle, like so many soap stars before her, has suffered the trauma of having her photograph taken from an unflattering angle by the tabloid paparazzi while daring to sport a swimming costume, no make-up and post-swimming hair.

Losing 2 stone and releasing a fitness DVD is one response. This would have been another.

Now much as I hate the shrub-skulking lowlifes who contribute these photos to the UK’s most exploitative newspapers, they do seem to provide the catalyst for a lot of the celebrity workouts that get reviewed here. Perhaps I  should concede that there is some virtue in what they do. Well, that’s clearly not going to happen. Total fucking scum. Every one of them.

In addition to losing 2 and a half stone, Vicky has also dropped 10 dress sizes which is a pretty startling weight loss/ dress size conversion rate however you slice it. Still given the disparity between size measurements across shops, I could drop 6 dress sizes just by selecting different items of clothing from my wardrobe so maybe that accounts for some of it.

Although there was definitely exercise involved as well.

Not that she isn’t clearly a fraction of the lady she used to be.  “I know I’m never going to be a supermodel,” she says in her introduction. “But I’m gobsmacked how much I’ve changed.” She seems like a nice lady. For the workout, she’s  rocking a vest-top and shorts combo which make her look ever so slightly like a tennis ball.

Ceci n'est pas une balle de tennis.

Vicky is joined by trainer Richard Callender who we last saw humouring Katie Price in the Jordan workout. He was also one of the trainers on the The Biggest Loser although it is hard to imagine as he seems like an absolute sweetie.

The sections of the workout are the Warm Up, Fat Burner, Body Tone and Belly Shrinker. The exercises are rather great. At the end of the cool down Vicky says, “Now I have to be honest with you. The first time I did this, I couldn’t walk for a couple of days afterwards.” You’re telling me this now, Entwistle? Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that? I may have stuff to do over the next couple of days that requires the use of my legs.
It’s now 24 hours since I did these exercises and luckily I don’t seem to have any trouble walking. Perhaps  I wasn’t pushing myself enough or  maybe I’m a lot fitter than Vicky was at the beginning of her fitness regime. It’s more than likely that Vicky has a tendency towards hyperbole. Actors often do, you know. Even the straight-talking Northern ones.

Best Bit

At the end of the obligatory “Making Of” DVD extra, we are shown Vicky variously eating a chocolate cupcake, drinking champagne and feeding Richard something that looks suspiciously like mashed potato with a massive spoon – like a baffling re-imagining of Bodger and Badger. I applaud such behaviour in a C-List Workout celeb. You wouldn’t get it from Penny “Chocolate Sniffer” Lancaster.

Party time!

Weirdest Bit

There are times during the workout that Richard has a perceptible outline round his head as though he has been super-imposed in the workout room via the magic of film camera trickery.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

I was going to make a joke about how the whole thing was really recorded in an alien space-station or in a magical fairy kingdom and they blue-screened it to make Richard appear like he was in a perfectly normal fitness studio.

Thing is, I’ve watched the DVD extra and it really does look like some of it was filmed in front a blue screen. I have no idea what’s real and what isn’t any more. Maybe none of these DVDs are really real. Maybe they just exist so that I can review them here like some kind of massively unsuccessful version of the Truman Show.

"That's great Vicky. Now we'll just get our CGI guys to painstakingly create an unremarkable workout space around you."

Is Richard Callender even a real person? I mean, sure I’ve seen him in the DVD extras but you know what, I’ve seen Buzz Lightyear in DVD extras and I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of trickery involved there too.

Worst Bit

Yet another pointless eating plan. There isn’t sufficient information here to plan anything. If the DVD producers aren't going to get Vicky back in to talk us through it and wave some Mange Tout at the camera, then quite frankly I’m not interested.

Or maybe dress as some Mange Tout. That would be good.

Difficulty Level

There are two types of ‘difficult’ when it comes to C-List Celebrity Workouts. Difficult to understand and difficult to do. It’s possible for a workout to be difficult because the instructor rattled through the instructions, didn’t really explain where your legs had to go and then expected to change from squats to lunges on no notice. It doesn’t mean that the workout necessarily did you much good.

Ideally you want the workout to be easy to understand but a bit of a challenge to complete which is exactly what Vicky Entwistle delivers here. Well, Richard Callender really deserves the credit but he wasn’t a cast member in the Best British Soap 2013 (according to the British Soap awards) so sorry, Rich.

Got this on your CV, Callender? No, didn't think so.

Everything is explained properly and demonstrated before you need to do it. In the warm-up section Richard introduces the new moves one at a time after making us complete the routine each time from the start. It’s the exercise version of that memory game where one person says “I want to the shops...” and you have to keep adding things to the list until someone forgets it.

Would I do this workout again?

Oh, I think so. I may be woefully ignorant with regard to most of Vicky Entwistle’s oeuvre but I’m happy to exercise with her again.

Hollyoaks – Dance Workout

This DVD starts by warning us that strobe effects are going to be used and so we had better take whatever appropriate precautions there are against strobing – deep breathing, tin foil hats, magically not being epileptic anymore – that sort of thing.

The other thing I saw recently with a strobe effects warning was Ben Wheatley’s “A Field in England” in which him off A League of Gentlemen takes magic mushrooms and trips his balls off in a field during the English Civil War. I am afraid that the Hollyoaks Dance Workout doesn’t fare that well in comparison.

This move doesn't feature in the workout, sadly.

The three Hollyoaks alumni here are Sarah Jayne Dunn, Jodi Albert and Ali Bastian who played Mandy Richardson, Debbie Dean and Becca Dean on the soap. They are joined by their trainer, Tristan Temple.

The gang's all here!

The DVD starts off with a quick interview and a fascinating behind the scenes look at their life on Hollyoaks in which we get the chance to see the sofa in the green room, learn that the girls like drinking tea in the morning and discover that nobody really appreciates just how hard soap stars work. It’s not all awards and parties, you know. Sometimes there is actual getting up in the morning involved.

I have the hardest job in the world.

Tristan asks the girls why they wanted to make a fitness video. “We just thought it would be something different” replies Sarah Jayne. Of course. Because soap stars releasing fitness DVDs is something that hardly ever happens. 

Ali tells us that they wanted the workout to be “fun and dance-based.” Which is a pity because it really isn’t either of those things. The producers have elected to take the ‘dance’ out of ‘dance workout’ and instead replace it with ‘grinding tedium’.

This is the least of its problems, frankly. The  Hollyoaks Dance Workout is the worst put together, cheapest-looking DVD that I’ve reviewed so far. And, you know, CLCW prides itself on its commitment to reviewing shoddily put-together bits of crap.

The whole thing is terrible. The picture quality and editing make it look like it was recorded on a mobile phone by a randy fifteen year old.

Not even slightly exaggerating.

The girls look unrehearsed and out of synch with one another. I’m not expecting Diversity-levels of co-ordination here but come on, at least try to maintain the illusion that you have the faintest idea what to do. Ali keeps having to look over her shoulder to check what the others are doing.

The music is both pointless and far too loud – Tristan is rendered almost inaudible during the first section. Even when his single word instructions aren’t being drowned out by the music, they aren’t much help. More than once I had to extrapolate what’s going on by focusing on Jodi’s midriff.

People who want to focus on Jodi’s midriff are without doubt the target audience for this DVD.

I imagine their ideal customer is someone who has already bought the Hollyoaks special episodes DVDs, books, calendars and limited edition Eau de Toilette and feels the need for just that bit more Hollyoaks in his life. Maybe he has set up a little shrine to Hollyoaks in the spare room – nothing fancy just a wall of photos and some candles. Somewhere to relax while he watches this dance workout on a continuous loop. The DVD looks like it has been shot in a tiny whitewashed basement somewhere which helps our viewer visualize exactly how the girls will look once he’s successfully managed to chloroform them and smuggle them into his specially-prepared suburban dungeon.

The typical viewer of this DVD.

There are three main sections to this DVD: the inspiringly named “Warm Up”, “Main Workout” and “Cool Down” sections. There is also a baffling extra section after the main workout where the girl don teeny tiny mini-skirts, stand in three inches of water and strut their funky stuff for 3 minutes. 

It has the flavour of one of those adverts that you get late at night for sex phone lines. The producers really do look after for their target audience. Because who doesn’t want to see girls who look like they’re being held against their will in the back room of a lap-dancing club after its suffered extensive flooding?

We checked with our focus group. That is exactly what they want to see.

Best Bit

In fairness to the girls, they do all seem perfectly lovely. (Apart from the flogging shoddy merchandise thing, obviously.) Sarah Jayne was in The Dark Knight, you know. And Jodi used to be in the Irish Girl group “Wonderland”. She’s married to one of the Westlifes.

Worst Bit

Look, I don’t want to get all schoolteachery here but I wish someone would take the makers of celeb workouts to one side and tell them that spelling does matter.

First there was Natalie Cassidy’s Eastenders character being referred to as “Sonja” rather than Sonia on the DVD box. A couple of weeks ago the DVD credits and enclosed booklet for Ministry of Sound couldn’t agree on whether one of the dancers was called ‘Stephen’ or ‘Steven’.

This week it’s Jodi Albert’s name which is clearly far too complicated for anyone to get right.

It’s Jodi not Jodie you imbeciles.

Seriously, if someone doesn’t sort this shit out I am going to start writing stiff letters of complaint to the newspapers. Probably in green ink and each one beginning “Why oh why oh why”.

Oh god, please help me.

Difficulty Level

We’re told this is a Dance workout – it’s right there in the name for goodness sake, but it really, really isn’t . It is a sequence of stretches interspersed with jogging on the spot. You know me, I’m no fan of dance workouts but I don’t think that pretending that you’re going to do a dance workout and then delivering something else is really the answer.

I was expecting a difficult dance workout. Instead I got a not-difficult not-dance workout. This should have made me happy but instead I feel cheated and let down. Stop playing with my emotions, Hollyoaks.

Would I do this workout again?

Definitely not. In fact, I’ll leave the final word to the guy who wrote the workouts only 5 star review on amazon.

Stay classy, James.

Natalie Cassidy – Then & Now Workout

Natalie Cassidy is the 5^th Eastenders actress workout to be featured on C-List Celebrity Workouts. She follows in the illustrious footsteps of Barbara Windsor, Jessie Wallace, Hannah Waterman and Charlie Brooks. It is a time honoured traditions for residents of Albert Square to don their lycra and share 60 minutes of themselves leaping about a bit with the world.

 If you consult your Cut-Out-and-Keep* Workout-Releasing Eastenders Actors Knowledge Sheet you can see that we haven’t even hit the halfway mark yet.

*Don’t really try to cut this out of your computer screen. That wouldn’t end well.

There’s some serious work ahead of us and six more workouts to get through before we can call “house!” on our Eastenders  bingo card. That’s assuming more Eastenders actors don’t release workout DVDs in the meantime. I suspect I would be powerless to stop them.

Not that I’d want to of, course.  I vote June Brown does one next. Or AdamWoodyatt.

You know, that dream could be closer than we realise.

Natalie teamed up with Charlie Brooks’ fitness instructor, Dee Thresher for this workout which was released in 2007, a couple of years after Charlie’s “Before and After” workout.

Dee is clearly not one to mess with a tried and tested formula. The workout is almost completely identical to the previous one. Including the footage of Natalie’s first workout and lots of close up foot action as she steps on the scales. All Dee’s signature moves are here: the box-step, the side-to-side skippy thing , lots of pelvis action. The whole thing’s too dance-y for my liking. She acts like it’s going to be all no-nonsense aerobic stuffs and then drops a choreographed dance sequence on you.

The sections are named things like SWEAT! and PUNCH! I was looking forward to the PUNCH section as I love a bit of pretend violence, me. Rather than getting stuck into imaginary fist fights, Dee has us skipping about like cheerleaders.

 

Street-fighting. Dee Thresher style.

Natalie and Dee seem to get on pretty well. Although, at one point Dee remarks to Natalie, “Let’s see if we can wipe that smile off your face.”

“You’ll have a job” responds Nat who then makes it her personal mission to SMILE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE for the rest of the workout. She looks completely deranged. It was lovely to watch.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!



Natalie delivers the classic celebrity workout line : “If I can do it – anyone can!” I wish I had been  keeping count of which celebrities have come out with those exact words. I reckon it’s all of them apart from Mark Wahlberg so far.

Best Bit

The exercise studio is  somewhere in London overlooking the Shell Mex building and the London Eye. It’s quite exciting. It’s the first C-List Celebrity Workout that looks like it might actually be taking place in the real world.

Tops of buildings! Some Flags!

Genuinely the most excited I've been about anything in a workout DVD ever.

It ought to be possible to identify the building that this is being filmed in based on the view from the window. I will try and work it out and then incorporate it into a CLCW walking tour. It’ll be great. I need a few more sites of historical C-List Celebrity Workout Importance first. Then I’ll organise a group of us to go round each one and do some appropriate fitness routines at each location.

Worst Bit

Sure you promise extras, Natalie Cassidy’s Then & Now Workout DVD, but what do you actually deliver? An “Eating Plan” which just consists of some words on the screen and barest outline of a healthy eating plan.

OK. Seems reasonable.

Wait, you haven’t said how often I can have these. I’m guessing about five or six times a day, right?

Luckily Natalie did a whole programme on how to eat for the BBC so don’t panic. Apparently living for a week on just maple syrup and water can make you feel a bit giddy.  You might want to make a note of that for future reference.

Weirdest Bit

“So Long, Sonja!” says the back of the DVD box. Who the hell is Sonja and why are we are saying goodbye to her?  I am presuming that they don’t mean Natalie’s Eastenders character, Sonia Fowler because surely whoever was writing the bit of bumph on the back of the box would have put in the cursory amount of research necessary to spell the name properly. Perhaps they’re talking about Queen Sonja of Norway. She might have been going off on a trip somewhere at the time.

Difficulty Level
This was far too complicated for me. I’m not here to memorise a dance routine, Dee. Just show me some squats and tell me to get on with it.

Would I do this workout again?

No. As I said it is almost identical to Charlie Brooks’  Before & After Workout. However, I do have the next Dee Thresher/Eastenders Actor mash-up to look forward to – Leticia Dean’s “Lean Routine”. I bet I can’t do that one either.

Charlie Brooks – Before And After

Charlie Brooks is the actress who plays Janine Butcher in Eastenders and shouldn’t be confused with Charlie Brooker, the TV Columnist and Black mirror writer.

Charlie Brooks workout regime contains a warm-up session, disco, combat and high intensity workout section and a Pilates cool down. Whereas Charlie Brooker’s would no doubt consist of gruelling allegory in a dystopian alternative reality. With knob jokes.

The Charlie Brooker Workout

 

Brooks is joined by Dee Thresher, the go-to Fitness coach for Eastenders actors. Dee has also appeared in a fitness-guru capacity on GMTV and Daybreak and is according to the internets, currently in a relationship with TV Doctor Nice, Dr Hilary Jones. At least, she has a link to his website from hers which I believe is how declares one’s intentions these days.

Da daaa! It's Dee.

Dee has also appeared in workout DVDs for Eastenders’ Natalie Cassidy and Letitia Dean although Brooks was the first so this is evidently where Dee got the taste for it. When I say first, I mean Charlie was the first to work with this particular trainer, not first to release a workout DVD , obviously. She was preceded by Patsy Palmer, Lucy Benjamin, Zoe Lucker and Barbara Windsor.

You know what would be handy? If someone were to produce a  handy visual guide to all the actors in Eastenders who have released workout DVDs including the date of release and the years in which they were part of the Eastenders cast.

Heh. I say ‘somebody’. I mean me, obviously. It’s not like I have anything more productive to do with my life. So here you go, world premier of CLCW’s official Workout-releasing Eastenders Actors Knowledge Sheet. Or WEAKS for short. You’re welcome, World.

Please click here for the larger version. Please. Don’t make me have put this together for nothing

This workout starts with a bit of background and Charlie’s early sessions which are shot documentary-style. We see her weigh herself for the first time and then cut to footage of her working out.

Original unsuccessful version of that John Lewis advert

“Doing the workout for the first time is the fun bit” intones the voiceover lady seriously. “But will it ever work?”

Well you see, Voiceover Lady, there’s not much point in the ramping up the tension because we already know that it’s going to work. New-look slim Charlie just told us so. Plus there’s a massive spoiler on the front of the DVD box itself. The bit where it says “This works! “


Warning: Contains Spoilers
Difficulty Level
Most of the routines were needlessly complicated. Dee seemed to under the impression we were learning a dance routine even when we just doing squats and lunges.  “And now lets put it all together and go from the top!” she’d shout enthusiastically. We’re not performing  a cabaret act here, Dee.

Charlie’s face was furrowed in concentration for most of the workouts and this is a girl who had supposedly done these routines dozens of times before.

Weirdest Bit
This isn’t specific to this workout but I was reading the warning bit that pops up at the beginning telling you not to do the workout if you’ve just eaten a heavy meal or are drunk or have taken lots of drugs and stuff. There is a line in it which says “Before consulting this or any other fitness regime, consult your doctor” Do people ever do that, do you think. Make an appointment with their GP so they can say “I’ve just bought this legs, bums and tums workout at Asda. What do you reckon, doc? Is it safe?” They shift millions of these things, surely. No wonder I can never get an appointment at the doctor’s surgery in under 3 weeks.

Worst Bit
The camera seems to be squarely trained on Charlie’s crotch for the first half of the workout. I had to pause the DVD a couple of times and both times, the TV screen just showed a close-up of her pelvis. Which was disconcerting.

For the second half the camera starts zooming in, zooming out and changing angles in a concentrated effort to give the viewer motion sickness. I think the cameraman was really bored.

Oh not again.

Would I do this workout again?
No point really. I know the ending now.