Why IS our reality TV so vulgar and boring?

A fire-eating porn star: Tia Brodie performs topless while passing naked flames over her body on Britain's Got Talent

Not so original: Lady GaGa impersonator Maxxie tries to impress judges on BGT

The wacky: Melissa and her guitar-playing dog Laika

This weekend, around 11 million people sat down to watch Britain's Got Talent as another parade of frankly odd people exhibited themselves on the stage in the hope of convincing the judges they have what it takes to be a star, as if they knew the real meaning of the word.

Lest we forget, the motley crew included former porn star fire-eater Tia Brodie, who performed topless while passing naked flames over her body, a guitar-playing dog and a cross-dressing Lady Gaga impersonator.

For supposedly Saturday night family viewing, it was an unedifying display to say the least - and there's no shortage of wannabes who are desperate to run the gauntlet of humiliation in the hope of finding that elusive moment in the limelight.

Millions of ordinary people today have caught the fame bug, and not only do they believe their strange and frankly often unpleasant acts are going to catapult them into the public eye, so many of them also think it really is that easy. That five minutes of making a fool of themselves on screen really is going to bring them lasting success.


A real star: Joan Collins prefers to watch a good film in the evenings

But think about it. Even if they do find notoriety on programmes like these, what is it going to get them anyway? How many people can remember who won Pop Idol or Britain's Got Talent three years ago?

Andy Warhol announced years ago that everyone will one day have their 15 minutes of fame. Well, these days that prophecy is becoming a scary reality, even if that means that pretty soon so many people will be on TV they'll be nobody left to watch it.

The truth is that most of today's TV is coarse, repellent, amateurish and puerile. And the reason is that it's all driven by reality shows that feed off these people who are so thrilled to be on TV they'll appear for the price of a train ticket - if they even get that much for their trouble.
Worst of all, there is so little glamour on modern television shows. That was what I loved when I was a young woman, but today TV seems to have gone through a 180-degree turn and become obsessed with grunge, blood and foul language.

When I first set foot in Hollywood, I had something of an epiphany. My hotel room was dominated by a massive metal object with many different buttons on it. I switched it on preparing to be bored stiff; then, as the screen came to life, a grinning munchkin appeared playing the piano with great enthusiasm.

I watched the creature with fascination; it was the American superstar Liberace, whose sparkling dentures almost outshone the sparkling piano keys. Dressed in a silvery-grey suit, his bouffant hair gleaming like the candelabra on his piano, he was like something from outer space. It was all in glorious colour, and I couldn't stop watching.
It's hard to explain to people today how exciting that was. At the touch of a button you could get CBS, ABC or NBC all showing the most wonderful and interesting programmes. On CBS there was the adorable Lucille Ball. On NBC there was Milton Berle, a superb comedian whose drag act never failed to have me in stitches.

Then there were great one-hour dramas, too, like The Loretta Young Show and The Dick Powell Theatre. Loretta Young was a movie star who made a seamless transition to TV. She swept on set each week in a different glorious gown to introduce the latest drama. I thought about Loretta Young's impact when I started to play Alexis on Dynasty because she taught me that glamour was so important to certain programmes.
But those wonderful, more innocent days of first-rate television are a distant memory now. I've no doubt the standards of television have been falling for some time, but what really started this dumbing down was the advent of Big Brother ten years ago. Now, it's been reincarnated as Celebrity Big Brother because everyone stopped watching.

But does anyone really care about these half-baked celebrities who whip off their clothes at a drop of a hat and indulge in wretched 'hide and seek' sex under duvets while pretending not to be aware of the camera?

This genre has spawned masses of similar programmes which follow the daily lives of various D-list celebs which are nauseating in their detail - and yet unbelievably boring. It amuses me to see the efforts of the producers, who even hire paparazzi in order to film these simpletons looking far more important than they are as they go about their lives.
There are far too many of these socalled reality shows on the air: celebrity chefs galore effing and blinding across kitchens nationwide, husbands and wives swapping partners with each other, parents handing over unruly, spoiled children to a 'super nanny' in despair.

And it's easy to see why the networks love these reality shows: they're very cheap to produce and they don't have to use actors! Hurrah - they have to pay actors, don't they?

Don't get me wrong. There are still gems to be found on TV. I must confess, I have a sneaking regard for The X Factor, and after the initial first several weeks of watching some of the cringe-making acts, by the time the last programmes air there is usually some genuine talent to be found.

There are also a couple of drama programmes today that are excellent. Mad Men, for example, is slick, stylish and well-written. Doctor Who continues to be a classic, having survived several generations and several incarnations of the good doctor.
Miss Marple and Poirot also never fail to please, as do Frost and Midsomer Murders - but for every one of those, there are hundreds of gormless, awful shows with pornographic names like Addicted To Boob Jobs, How To Look Good Naked and the recent barbaric and cruel I'm A Celebrity . .. Get Me Out Of Here! I watched the earlier shows of that series, which were not nearly as savagely sadistic as the recent ones.

Christopher Biggins in 2007 became a beloved household name for winning this brutal competition, but I must confess my heart was in my mouth at some of the dangerous stunts he was forced to do.

In its most recent incarnation - littered with vulgarity and barbarism - all the watchable celebrities did end up 'getting out of there', leaving no one worth rooting for. My friend George Hamilton looked suntanned and bemused and wasn't asked to do anything except chat laconically about Hollywood.

Maybe they should change the title to I'm A Celebrity... Let Me Die Quietly.

Even the blockbuster shows don't capture my attention the way the old programmes used to. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's new series, The Pacific, has hundreds of male actors who all look identical in helmets and camouflage gear mowing down the enemy with gay abandon. There's never a woman to be seen, and from my half-hour watching episode one, it showed images very few women will actually want to see.

People started watching TV avidly in the 1950s because movies were becoming stale and trite. However, now that so much TV has become predictable, vulgar and nasty, people seem to be returning in droves back to the cinema, where the advent of 3-D is proof that 'if you build it, they will come'.

Billion- dollar box office returns would indicate that people are willing to spend good money for cutting-edge entertainment rather than watch pre-fab shows on TV at a fraction of the cost.

Even comedy today has been affected. How horrible was A Comedy Roast on C4 for dear Bruce Forsyth, in which a bunch of no-names made fun of our national treasure while spewing out obscenity and filth?

Everybody just laughs at the longest stream of filthy words the comics can join together. And yet at the same time, our over-emphasis on political correctness means many subjects are off-limits to spare hurt feelings.

Today the fabulous Fawlty Towers wouldn't have a prayer of getting past TV's politically correct Nazis. Basil Fawlty making fun of the Spanish and screaming 'don't mention the war' in front of a group of Germans would have people foaming at the mouth. Even Absolutely Fabulous would have a tough time with the drunken Patsy portrayed as a loveable role model.

Where are the romantic and glamorous series today? Don't women viewers want to see a Charlie's Angels or a Dallas any more? From my experience they do, but the programme makers, I suppose, consider well-crafted drama too frivolous or boring for the modern woman.

I'm constantly asked if there is ever going to be anything on TV that can transport people out of their stressful lives and immerse them into a gorgeous fantasyland.

During the Depression in the 1930s, Hollywood churned out glorious, fun films - complete escapism, which the public loved and needed. Now, when I surf channels, I am sickened by endless shots of people being murdered or cadavers on slabs being dissected.

In America, there seem to be hundreds of offshoots of crime docudramas: CSI, CSI Miami, CSI NY, Special Investigations Unit, NCIS. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up here with CSI Bognor Regis.

Thank God for satellite. After the morning shows and news programmes, if I'm in for a night of TV viewing it's always movies or a good DVD. In fact, you can even watch Dynasty now on the CBS channel. Believe me, given the alternatives on mainstream TV, I'd take that every time.