TV Review: Life Is Toff

“He had the attention span of a gnat and all the worries for the future of a mayfly.”

By the end of Tuesday’s episode of Life Is Toff (BBC3) there were many words to describe Arthur Fulford that sprang to mind. Delusional wasn’t one of them.

“If anybody tries to judge me for inheriting this, for being in this amazing position, then, frankly, they can naff off,” the 21-year-old heir to the 3000-acre Great Fulford Estate told us even before the programme’s opening titles had run (although, for accuracy’s sake, I should point out that this statement was the first of many occasions the Fulfords used a word stronger than “naff”).

So, far from being one of those people who go on reality television and then complain the editing made them look stupid, Arthur was well aware how his family were going to come across.

And if the future lord of the manor doesn’t want to be held responsible for Britain’s antiquated primogeniture laws it should not be down to a humble serf like me to pass comment.

Not when the programme gave us so many other ways of holding the Fulford family up for ridicule.

“I bring up my dogs and my children exactly the same way,” said Francis Fulford, the current lord, but sadly this rare display of egalitarianism had only led to a pack of well-adjusted Labradors.

Frustratingly for the future of the Fulfords, Fido will be unable to run their affairs when his lordship has joined his 22 predecessors in the sky.

It will fall to Arthur, and we were privileged to watch him being brought up to speed by the estate manager (very slowly as he had the attention span of a gnat and all the worries for the future of a mayfly).

Meanwhile, his youngest brother climbed into a hole in the wall and got stuck, his twin sister felt a bit sick at the sight of poor people on the estate (to attend a boot sale) and called an ambulance, and his other brother dressed up in fatigues and trolled the grounds looking for a duck (or seagull) to shoot.

This may seem eccentric to those whose house doesn’t cost £150,000 a year to run, but who are we to judge?