Rebecca Barry: Chat show spiced with too much truth

I never realised you could drop from a helicopter while inside a shipping container, land in the ocean, climb out, sit on the top of the container and ring for a taxi after chatting to Richard Hammond - until Zoe Bell did it on a mobile phone ad.

Now that's settled, I've got something to do on Friday night. Well, what else am I going to do?

My favourite documentary series, New Zealand's Next Top Model, has whisked 16-year-old Christobelle into fame and fortune ("I'm freaking oooout"!) so how are we going to stay informed? It was really refreshing to watch a show that put the real back into reality TV, much as One News does with its fist-pumping, objective reporting.

You knew that, as the girls posed and shrieked and said "thenk-yuy-s-much", they were being captured in the height of spontaneity, rather than running excitedly into the mansion for the sixth take, then doing it again for the seventh because they had the camera on Teryl-Leigh. You knew Colin Mathura-Jeffree looked just like that when he got out of bed in the morning. You knew there was a grammar and apostrophe specialist checking every morsel of Saramail.

But help is on the way. And it's being delivered by someone who knows a thing or two about telling too much truth. Bafta-winning The Jonathan Ross Show (aka Friday Night with Jonathan Ross) is coming to New Zealand next month thanks to UKTV.

This is extremely good news. Wossy, as they like to call the lispy chat show host and proud "commoner", is one of the best things about Friday night television, despite the media whipping he was subjected to in Britain.

Yes, he and loutish comedian Russell Brand did some unspeakable things that were spoken about at great length, things he is still paying for and is probably best known for on this side of the world. It's not advisable to ring a veteran of the small screen - in this case, Fawlty Towers' star Andrew Sachs - and tell his answer machine that a certain loutish comedian did naughty things with his granddaughter live on national radio (the revelation, not the act).

But the scandal was the kind of thing the press, keen to pin something on one of Britain's richest TV personalities, were hungry for. For weeks, you couldn't pick up a paper without Ross being hauled over the coals for the incident.

When he was suspended from the BBC for 12 weeks, his fans were the ones who felt punished. We had to go out on Fridays instead. By the time he returned to the screen in January, we were preparing to leave London for Auckland.

Since the former film critic's show started in 2001, Ross has hosted an interesting mix of actors, comedians, musicians and personalities including Sacha Baron Cohen, the Killers, Joanna Lumley, Lionel Richie, Mickey Rourke and Sir David Attenborough. Now that Parky has retired from chat shows and the Rialto Channel has snaffled Later with Jools Holland, that leaves Rove, who admittedly is better to look at in HD and who keeps Kiwis in mind, often interviewing artists whose presence we've also been graced with.

But the advantage Ross has is his ability to skewer anyone who tries too hard to plug something. Check him out on YouTube if you don't believe me and look for the episode featuring Ricky Gervais (albeit his good mate), who gets taken to task for his wonky teeth despite promoting a film in which he plays a dentist.

Ross then clearly intimidates Gordon Ramsay, which is a sight to behold.

His show is edgier yet more intimate than the likes of Americans Larry King (CNN), David Letterman (Prime), Oprah (TV3) or Ellen Degeneres (TV One).

Even after Sachsgate, Ross commented to his guest Gwyneth Paltrow that he would, more or less, like to do to her what Brand did to Sachs' granddaughter, and got himself in trouble again. He's a bit too honest, but that's why he's good. The only porkies he attracted were the Kiwi pigs he bought as pets last year.

And without any variety chat shows of our own - Prime's short-lived The Tem Show only seemed to expose our lack of celebrity, and besides, if we really need to talk to someone we do it at 7pm - it's comforting to know there's another reason to stay indoors on a Friday.

The only gripe is Wossy won't be free-to-air and we'll be behind by a few months until about October, so viewers can watch the initial episodes online anyway. The premiere on July 17 went to air in Britain in January.

That means we'll hear Tom Cruise talking about Valkyrie, a film that was released months ago. Eventually though, we'll catch up until we're a week or so behind.

And truth, in all its scandalous glory, will be restored to our screens.