Tara Chirpy / 28 August 2025 / Categories: Movie and TV Shows, TV Show

Real Housewives of London two episodes in and I’ve got the ICK a little bit

Prefer the crazy Salt Lake City Housewives produced by Bravo TV, way more chaotic and feels more real, less scripted

I read a snoop on here from my long time friend Shirley Yanez, a girl with a definite opinion, a stylish girl with exceptional taste, a great writer (we met professionally through an agent at Curtis Brown) and someone I trust to steer me in the right direction when it comes to light hearted gossip and glamour on TV. My cultural attaché to all things girl power. She’s the person who got me snooping in the first place to help her with her launch of the Poopsnoop platform.

Well, episode 1 kicked off with a quite frankly unbelievable six year feud between characters Panthea, Iranian princess and Juliet Matthew Australian debutant, dancer, (I immediately smelt a rat, producers struggling to find a hook) for actress Juliet educated at Arts Educational in Tring on a scholarship. There was a bit of confusion for me too when in a VT she said she attended the same school as Princess Diana who went to West Heath School with her sister as a boarder. Diana Princess of Wales never attended the dance and drama school Arts Educational so may have been a little bit of editorial license there, unless Juliet Mayhew went to Riddlesworth Hall or Silfield Private School, the other schools Princess Diana attended before joining her sisters and cousin at West Heath, before Arts Educational I am struggling to see where their paths and the association actually stems from.

The show seemed lacking in content for me, the action in episode two centred around a dinner party hosted by Karen at the illustrious Isobel’s in Mayfair, not somewhere I’ve ever been but if you read the Dailt Mail it gets mentioned in the celebrity columns quite a bit. It was good to peak inside the private dining rooms as the women scoffed caviar and the best mocktails in the house.

I thought it pretty hilarious a feud over a dental recommendation from 6 years ago could be the main filmed content, a fake reconciliation at the dinner at Isobel’s apparently was the clean up from a fight at Amanda Cronin’s international women’s day party.

It’s obviously a set up and the girls bless them, not good enough in front of the camera’s to pull off the heist convincingly enough for show producers. It was cringe. The glamourous super wealthy lifestyles consisted of a shopping trip to Jimmy Choo where Dubai housewife Caroline Stanbury, who I do find quite amusing and quite a character pitches up to meet Australian pal Juliette and walks out with two much bigger bags, probably because she does have a reputation for being extremely well connected and makes her living, living it up in Dubai as a paid “influencer”

Juliette Mayhews shopping bag was tiny, too small to be a pair of shoes, which Stanbury commented about on camera and had to be dismissed with a quip about size not being important.

When Juliet Mayhew was outed at the dinner party once more by brutal Panthea for buying her Instagram followers and borrowing her wardrobe it was maybe an indication why it was Caroline Stanbury who walked out of Jimmy Choo loaded down with shopping bags. We didn’t see money change hands, just saying.

I don’t know these women and my musings are just that musings, I don’t have any facts just my instinct from watching the show.

A video conversation between twice or thrice divorcee and PR guru in the self publicising arena between millionairess Amanda Cronin and her step daughter Sophia and a trip to the nail salon for Karen and her daughter, plus Nessie Dinosaur cookbook launch and Panthea’s overbearing mother coming to visit and you’ve got the whole 2nd episode show and tell.

The absolute best part of all when Amanda Cronin picked up her knife in Isobel’s and used it as a mirror to apply her lipstick, only one step better, when Helena did the exact same thing with the swing bin lid on Love Island.

I am extremely partial to the Real Housewives franchise but sadly this is one where the Americans seem to do it so much better than the Brits. I’ve been catching up on the drama in Salt Lake City, a group I didn’t really get to begin with and the Mormon thing I had limited knowledge and experience of culturally however the fights seem crazy real which makes the watch way more shocking and consequentially way more addictive.

I’ll probably check in again with the Real Housewives of London but at the moment it’s going to have to get a whole lot better and a whole lot more real to engage me long term. It could be heading down the Real Housewives of Jersey pathway if the girls aren’t careful, two seasons max and then you’re cancelled.

The hype has been pretty huge across most media outlets and all the glossy magazines have covered the much anticipated 10 episodes, from Cosmopolitan to Glamour. However this series has been a first time original commission for Hayu, the digital steaming service for Universal NBC not veteran producers Bravo TV which could be the difference in the quality content we usually get and have come to expect from the franchise. After watching episodes one and two the most exciting part of the series sounds like the reunion hosted by funny girl and glamour puss herself Canadian comedienne Katherine Ryan. That’s a show I’ll be tuning in for for sure.