Billion Dollar Playground review — peek into rich lives feels far too confected

Times

21 hours ago

Do you disagree that life is short? Do you therefore wish to fritter away hours of your existence on confected tension and overhyped first world problems set to a 'luxe' aesthetic? Then I have just the show for you!
Billion Dollar Playground (BBC3) is an attempt to ride on the coat-tails of Selling Sunset and wealth porn TV generally, though it is set in Sydney, Australia, not Los Angeles. And it is not about buying property but a high-end holiday rental company and its 'elite service' staff whose response to their rich, often very brattish guests staying at $40 million mansions is never, ever 'no', even when those clients demand a fire-eater at short notice. And, yes, it's strangely moreish if completely unconvincing.
'Structured reality' is, if you ask me, usually code for 'contrived and fabricated tosh which is a bit of an insult to one's intelligence'. It is 'fictual' rather than 'factual'. So many of the spats between the workers here seem obviously scripted. Some of the one percenters' pickiness ('the bath towel is too smooth!') seem clearly for the benefit of the camera, possibly involving several retakes. Why not just make a drama on the subject and be done with it?
Well, I suppose The White Lotus has already done that rather well. So here is its clunky offshoot, a group of (attractive, obviously) young people with perfect teeth whose job is to pander to the whims of holiday guests who have everything but who would complain about the sheen on an angel's wings.
This, actually, is a good idea. Being appalled watching people sending back their caviar to slaving personal chefs just because they can, and showing us that being obscenely wealthy doesn't necessarily make people happy, is one of the few consolations of being a pleb. Enjoy. Call me catty (plenty have) but I certainly enjoyed the fact that a group of super-rich middle-aged women arrived with groaning Louis Vuitton suitcases for one weekend and there wasn't a nice frock in them. They looked like they'd raided the Matalan sale rail.
But the artifice here is just too obvious. Isn't the entire point of high-end service elegant, classy discretion from the staff? This lot spend so much time bitching behind the scenes, I wouldn't come here if I were a yacht/PJ owner (that's 'private jet' to peasants). The part in which one woman brought along her dog when pets aren't allowed looked so rehearsed I laughed out loud (she eventually agreed to pay $1,000 for steam cleaning. Expensive weekend).
It reminds me a little of last year's atrocious Buying London, Netflix's series about ghastly estate agents selling 'super prime' property in the capital to high rollers, which felt to me to be totally contrived. Just as in that series, here we have two beautiful female members of staff, Heaven and Jasmin, pitted against each other. The male boss, the head concierge Salvatore, found fault with everything Heaven did while, as far as I could see, doing very little himself. Cut to him flouncing out unprofessionally in episode two in a way that I can't think anyone trained at the Savoy would do.
Not a moment of this feels authentic. But if you're willing to suspend your disbelief you can at least savour the realisation that being rich and working with the rich isn't all it's cracked up to be.
★★☆☆☆