ITV’s The Neighbourhood is a slow burn – but it’s brilliantly ruthless

Ever wondered what you’d get if you mixed Desperate Housewives with The Traitors?

No? Well, now you don’t need to because Graham Norton has the answer: it’s ITV’s treacherous new game show, The Neighbourhood, where your hatred of cats or questionable guitar skills could be enough to get you sent packing.

In the heart of the Peak District lies a quiet suburb with just six households, a pub, a cafe, and a quiet lake dotted with baby ducks. On the surface, it’s a sleepy cul-de-sac in rural England, but the residents who live there are sharpening their knives, ready to stab their neighbours in the back for the chance to win a £250,000 cash prize.

It’s the latest – and arguably boldest – brazen attempt to replicate the colossal success of The Traitors. The Big Brother house pales into comparison when ITV has gone as far as constructing an entire village, complete with a rotating cast of residents empowered to evict rival households through cut-throat gameplay and passive-aggressive jabs in the neighbourhood WhatsApp group.

It’s undeniably ambitious. Norton, who rarely lends his name to anything beyond Eurovision and his flagship talk show, clearly saw something here beyond a hefty pay cheque.
Admittedly, it took me a while to see what that spark might be.

It takes a particular type of family to want to be on a reality TV show together. There’s a distinctive chemistry between them which is so far removed from my own, like an off-puttingly enthusiastic team on Family Fortunes, that took a while for me to get on board with.

But beneath the performative smiles is a genuinely fascinating cast.

Among them is the blended family, the Kondolas, led by the formidable Sunita, who speaks candidly about overcoming barriers within the Punjabi community after her divorce. Meanwhile, Jordan of the Lozman-Sturrocks is a stand-up comedian grappling with PTSD following his service in Afghanistan.

There are jewels in the cast who take a while to shine, but when they do, the entire premise becomes far more interesting.

The families first meet during a challenge that sets the tone: each household must nominate one member to be hoisted onto a seven-metre-high washing line – literally airing their dirty laundry in public. Norton reads out confessions, and those ‘hung out to dry’ must guess which household they belong to.

The questions range from the mildly eyebrow-raising, ‘Which family member has been married four times?’ to the outright inflammatory. ‘Which household has someone who thinks cats are pointless, moody and s**t?’ Unsurprisingly, the latter doesn’t go down well.

Whichever team wins a challenge is awarded immunity from the first eviction, which is where The Neighbourhood suddenly comes into its own.

Each household must place a ‘For Sale’ sign outside the home of the family they wish to banish, based on little more than first impressions. It’s a brutally early test of alliances, and – as with so much reality TV – some of the most compelling personalities are eliminated too soon.

Norton feels as though he’s been hosting the show for years; much like Claudia on The Traitors, Davina with Big Brother, the shoe just fits at the very first try.

His bitchy quips, my personal highlight of Eurovision, splice through each episode with a sharp and genuine sense of humour that actually works, which is such a rarity in reality TV when contestants are forced to laugh through terrible gags. It’s become enough to put me off watching The Apprentice ever again.

But Norton has the rare charm to be both sharp and kind; his genuine love of the game and affection for the families is the essential ingredient for a reality TV host, and immediately it’s clear there is quite simply no one else better suited for the job.

In anyone else’s hands, The Neighbourhood could so easily be a tacky, uninspired mess, but even his cutting narration alone gives it a classy touch.

I can’t say I was instantly grabbed by The Neighbourhood. The scale, while impressive, isn’t what makes reality television compelling – Big Brother was never better than when the house was stripped bare to nothing more than a basic bedroom, kitchen and chicken coop in the garden.

Reality TV lives and dies by its cast, and while The Neighbourhood doesn’t instantly deliver clear heroes and villains, it doesn’t take long for the game to sharpen its edges.

By the time the alliances start to fracture and the politeness gives way to paranoia, The Neighbourhood begins to reveal its true identity – not just as a glossy imitation of The Traitors, but as a slow-burning social experiment with a vicious streak.

It may take time to find its footing, but once it does, it becomes brilliantly ruthless television.

The Neighbourhood is airing on ITV1 and ITVX.

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