Britain’s Next Top Model - Week 4

3 comments | Published by Rach Read |

Alisha, Tiffany & Joy’s good photos

Is it just me or has this season of BNTM been moving at an accelerated pace? We’ve already had makeovers and tonight we got two photo-shoots for the price of one, a shock elimination and go-sees, usually the preserves of the later stages of the competition – at this rate, the winner might be crowned within a fortnight! Perhaps we’re working on Aussie time now Elle’s joined. Hit see more to relive the highs, lows and Dame Nicola Roberts-ness of Week 3.

With Rachelle’s retreating footsteps still audible in the distance, the girls received their next “E-mail”, warning of the importance of first impressions. Whilst everyone correctly guessed go-sees, Alisha (fresh from being nonplussed about chocolate bars and vintage clothes) started banging on about it being an acting job. ‘This *is* a modelling competition,’ retorted Olivia (and the viewing audience at large). Did I mention Alisha’s fast becoming my favourite?

Firstly, they met two lemon-sucking representatives from Model 1. Then, it was onto a square-faced man from Miss Sixty and a nice lad called William Tempest. Poor old Oirish Susan was told she looked like she should be in a shampoo campaign and was corpse-like, Alisha flashed her knickers, Charlotte was branded boring and Amba was told others had nicked her pose. Hell hath no fury like a Next Top Model contestant scorned – she swiftly told everyone, pose-thief or not, that they were pathetic. ‘I think we’ll see some tension,’ remarked Amelia, in her attempt to win the understatement of the year award.

The girls got home to be greeted with judges Grace and Charley, with their Serious Faces on. Models 1 had deemed Susan so terrible that she had to go. Am I the only one who found this a bit outrageous? Just three weeks ago, Elle made the final 13 become the final 14 because she liked Susan so much and other girls had received far more criticism, both for their walks and their photos – perhaps, had she been given time, she could have worked on the agency’s criticisms. But the lemon-suckers had decreed it was so and Susan was gone, without even a final madcap compliment/insult from Julian to keep her company.

Onto the first photo-shoot, to promote products for AIDS charity, RED – with Elle on hand as mentor. I say mentor, I mean puppet-master. As Elle pulled the strings to position body parts in the right place, we finally saw an edge to the mellow Aussie: ‘I wanna see what you can do… That’s not a lot,’ she stated as Delete-Her continued to show as much life as a bed-ridden extra in Casualty. In fact, her prop (a pram) seemed to have a greater level of animation than she did. Pram to win!

Back to the house, where Amba decided she didn’t want any of Kirsty’s roast dinner. ‘It’s fine’ shouted Kirsty aggressively. ‘No-one’s ‘aving a full-blown fight wiv you,’ shouted Alisha, having an un full-blown one at least. Amba decided she wanted an adult chat with everyone – doesn’t she know that in Next Top Model terms, this always results in a slanging match of the highest degree? Sure enough, she was called rude, offensive, a moaner who couldn’t apologise and who talked down to others. An adult chat, indeed.

Delete-Her, Amelia & Harleen’s crap photos

But we weren’t even half-way through yet! The photo-shoot was a poster campaign for Beat Bullying and – GIRLS ALOUD FANS, START READING HERE! – enter Nicola Roberts, all gorgeous and ginger, to help with the shoot and to fill the ginger deficiency left by Susan’s departure as guest judge. Delete-Her felt the urge to tell Dame Nicola that her cousin was her brother’s best mate’s pet dog or something. ‘Just thought I’d say that!’ (Never mind Nicola’s cousin, is someone on the production team related to Little Boots? She’s been on the soundtrack, sometimes twice, every week – amazing stuff given that she has all of about three good songs.) Harleen, despite personally experiencing bullying, struggled to convey her emotion on-set, instead looking mildly constipated whilst the rest of the girls watched laughing. Tiffany: ‘If I go before Harleen, I’ll probably stop modelling.’ Miaow.

Alisha, winner of the RED challenge, also had the strongest photo, despite being styled to look like a boy. Charley asked Tiffany if the success of her shot, where she had to look in a mirror and hate how she looked, was down to her looking in the mirror and hating her haircut. ‘I’d better not say!’ she replied – together with her Bond villain accent, this girl almost has better lines than the judges. Not that they didn’t try: on hearing that Amelia was supposed to be ‘confused by her emotions’, Elle remarked that she was confused by looking at the photo, Nicola and Amba were both called boring and Elle raised hopes by telling Harleen that she ‘looked better today than I’ve ever seen you’ before cruelly dashing them with ‘unfortunately, that’s not mirrored in the shoot’.

All this paled in comparison with… you know who… Delete-Her! Her final photo looked more as if she was avidly watching BNTM rather than taking part in it. But perhaps her family connection with Nicola’s third cousin twice-removed’s brother’s dog’s mate wasn’t as irrelevant as we first thought because she STILL managed to avoid the bottom two. Instead, that honour fell to Amelia and Harleen, and with comments in judging like ‘She’s not very good… and she hasn’t been good along the way’ about the latter, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Harleen was out.

Next week sees chocolate, fire, Beyoncé and sadly, no more references to Harleen’s culture. What will the producers do to fill the time?! I know, let’s have some more Little Boots in the soundtrack instead!


Check out our recaps of BNTM so far:

- Week 1 & 2
- Week 3

Britain’s Next Top Model is on Mondays, 9pm, Living