Now a cynic might suggest that Wrighty is trying to do a Jamie, i. e. Oliver, who attained living sainthood in his native land for pointing out that British schools were serving unhealthy dinners to kids.

But we were soon put right by Wright's opening salvo: "Everywhere you go you try to explain to people the enormity of the situation but nobody cares . . . no one wants to listen. I don't know anything what is more important than what I'm doing." Take that Al Gore.

To go about the most important work what he knows about, Wright went in search of some children with just the right amount of freak show appeal, "The kids I'm looking for are unfit, lack of exercise, the kind of kids that always get picked last, those are the kids I'm targeting." Kind soul that he is, he gave the chosen ones the brand new experience of being picked first. For his fat camp. In front of the entire school. Gestures don't get much more heroic.

So with his eight unwilling students, Wright attempted to knock some fitness into them. But it wasn't the kids' attempts at exercise that provided the base entertainment, rather the roll call of parents, who ranged from the dysfunctional to the utterly useless.

The mother of Sophie, who weighed 16 stone at the age of 13, lamented, "She's such a pretty girl, it's such a shame, " as her daughter recoiled in horror at her choice of words. Jerome's single mother decided the best course of action would be to scream, "Do you want to die?

Do you want to? If you don't do it [training] you'll be dead by the time you're 25, " before lighting up a fag to calm down.

Jerome had already staked his claim as star of the show, with his doe eyes, flashes of smarts and his tragically fatalistic take on his situation. Inevitably, he was a victim of bullying, a revelation with which Wright clumsily tried to identify by saying that he had suffered similarly at school because of his asthma. Jerome didn't look convinced and as two weeks went by it was clear that for him, Wright had transformed from hero to hassle.

With few of his students following the exercise programmes asked of them, Wright was becoming more and more frustrated. "He treats us with no respect, " whined Sophie after some mild haranguing. Wright was even summoned to Jerome's house with his mother livid that he had come home almost in tears. Wright claimed that he was only shouting encouragement. "I don't care if it was the f**king queen shouting at him, " yelled the mother. "I don't want my kid upset." The kids didn't want to do it, the parents didn't want to make them do it and Wright was, perhaps understandably, losing interest himself.

Things had improved somewhat by the end of episode one, after Wright had the bright idea of getting the kids to try a different sport every week. This required cash, and led to the bizarre sequence of him on the phone, begging unnamed banks and businesses for a few grand for his unestablished and apparently unlicensed after-school exercise club. Surely even some of the kids could have told him that ringing up random banks and asking for money "y'know, for kids 'n' that" isn't likely to work.

Finally he found a happy-clappy health food company who gave him a cheque.

You'd swear he'd just been given a cure for cancer. "10,000 quid man . . . that is such an unbelievable gesture." It's called sponsorship Ian. Course you could have just asked the production company. Or made a withdrawal yourself. You don't have to be posh to be privileged.

Anyway, with his money, Wright decided not to get carried away. So the kids were treated to a fencing lesson from Britain's number one fencer. "If you make it fun for them they'll enjoy it, " he enthused. There you go parents, all you need is some expensive fencing equipment and someone who knows how to fence. The programme was now in Jim'll Fix It territory. Fine for the kids involved but not offering much practical advice to the public.

Flashing up alarming statistics on obesity is well and good, but it was difficult to see how this programme is likely to make a difference. And if it's not going to make a difference, then it's little more than a voyeuristic look at grotesquely unhealthy kids and some appalling parents. Sainthood may have to wait Ian, maybe when the world freezes over.

phoran@tribune. ie