No reservations

Hotel Babylon's staff contemplate unemployment in a new season beginning this week. Photo / Supplied

Hotel Babylon is fun. Even though the first episode of this fourth series opens with the seemingly grim development of the London bombings, the series manages to be so unremittingly inane, it is hard to believe it is made by the prim and proper BBC. There isn't a gritty kitchen sink or profound thought anywhere in sight. In fact, it is one of the few British programmes to look glam enough to pass for a Hollywood production. And it is just as glossily formatted.

The deal is each week some famous guests book into the hotel and dramas ensue. There is no social commentary or meaningful subtext. "If there is some sort of terrorist event or atrocity will I get a discount on my bill?" asks one hopeful guest.

Juliet "The Undertaker" Miller (Anna Wilson-Jones) is now in charge as hotel manager, but is thrown into a spin when her ex-husband Sam Franklin (former EastEnders' Nigel Harman) turns up just as she is trying to save the struggling hotel. "She is nothing more than a jumped up little lackey feasting on the carcass of the hotel like the skinny malinky little vulture that she is," says receptionist Anna, unaware Juliet can overhear. "Er, any chance you didn't hear any of that?"

Juliet: "I used to be a size 14 so you had me at skinny."

The conceit of the first episode is that strangers bond together in a Britain-during-the-Blitz fashion while the terrorist alert is in force. "Even if you don't normally sleep with strangers, the fear of imminent death is a good incentive," says affable concierge Tony Casemore (Dexter Fletcher). The other plot strand concerns the arranged marriage of a Bollywood superstar, providing an opportunity for plenty of musical interludes. But for all its froth, if there was a Equal Opportunities Award for the television programme with the most racially diverse cast presented in a non-gratuitious manner, Hotel Babylon would have to be a shoo-in. There are Croats and Indians and blacks and Cockneys and none of them seem to be tokens or caricatures (although the black gay receptionist does remind me of the black gay receptionist Michel in Gilmore Girls).

Of course, Hotel Babylon is nonsense but it's fun to ignore its stupidity and luxuriate in the Hello! magazine world of celebrity and glamour.

The American showbusiness bible Variety said: "As series go, it's perhaps easiest to think of Hotel Babylon as the opposite of how the Eagles described the Hotel California: A place where you can check in any time you like, and if you don't like that week's accommodations, hey, you can always leave." But when it's so much fun, why would you want to?

* Season four of Hotel Babylon debuts on TV One, Tuesday at 8.30pm.