The Woodhouse review – mon jan 7

 Mr Selfridge – ITV1

“YOU’RE standing on the spot,” said the brash figure in the top hat, “where the biggest and best department store in the world is shortly going to rise up from the rubble.” Not Wilkinson’s, Leek. Selfridge’s, London.

Harry Selfridge was the man with a mission to make shopping as thrilling as sex. A comparison you’d hopefully not make after emerging from Poundland.

“I want product range and I want product quality,” he said. “I want merchandise that people will desire. I want merchandise that people won’t know they desire until they see it right in front of their very eyes.” It was a visionary approach. Garages still do it with road atlases.

Not everybody was taken with the shopkeeper. “This fellow Selfridge seems to have a damned high opinion of himself,” noted one observer, a fan of the more low key Mr Millet.

Indeed, for a while it seemed Selfridge had bitten off more than he could chew, seeking emergency investment via formidable socialite Lady Mae Loxley, despite her trepidation towards the venture. “People like us aren’t used to going shopping,” she told him. “It’s not considered smart. A gentleman will visit his tailor, a lady will send for her dressmaker, and so on.” Occasionally we get manure delivered.

It became clear that Lady Mae might require certain attentions from Selfridge by way of return, inviting him initially to a hunt. “Will you make sure,” she asked her assistant, “that Mr Selfridge arrives in the latest knickerbockers? I do so enjoy a shapely calf.” A century later and she’d have had him in handcuffs from Ann Summers.

Selfridge, though, had taken more of a shine to Ellen Love, a good-looking Gaiety girl who he employed as the Spirit of Selfridge’s. “I want your face and figure on all our posters,” he told her. “Women want to be like you and men want you to be their sweetheart.” Like Kerry Katona used to be with Iceland.

Of course, Mr Selfridge will attract comparisons with BBC1’s The Paradise. But there is one subtle difference. Mr Selfridge has characters and a storyline.

It’s got a bit of pace and layering. Like the first series of Downton Abbey before it turned into a post-Edwardian Crossroads.

“London is crying out for this,” blustered Selfridge. “We're giving them glamour, style, razzmatazz. Once they see what we're doing here, there'll be no turning back.” It’s just a shame he didn’t give the restaurant franchise to Spud-U-Like.

However, there was one worry. The opening day was a great success crowd-wise, but sales were low.

The idiot should have gone online.