Gay way to make men out of slobs

TAKE two outrageously gay fashion experts, tell them to help two unreconstructed Yorkshire blokes get in touch with their feminine side, and what have you got? Some delicious misunderstandings, that's what.

Yorkshireman Mike Spink is so terrified at the prospect of sharing his house with a gay man that when fashion stylist Colin Woolfendon moves in at the behest of his long-suffering wife Amabel, Mike pulls a chest of drawers across his bedroom door at night, just to be on the safe side. At least that is what he tells Colin.

Welcome to Channel 4's latest reality makeover show, The Fairy Godfathers. Think Wife Swap meets Graham Norton and you won't be far wrong.

The idea is simple. Each week, two women put their old-fashioned men up for a lifestyle overhaul. The girls move out and Nick and Colin move in. Their mission: to put the blokes in touch with their feminine side and transform them into stylish, considerate New Men. To make them, in fact, just a little bit... well, gay.

Gay is the last word you would use to describe Richmond farmer Chris Gibbon and his best friend Mike, a transport and distribution manager. Their idea of style is checked shirts and chinos, or pink tie and yellow shirt combos that make them look far older than their 31 years.

Chris is the kind of pig farmer who, while sitting on a sow ready to impregnate her with boar semen, makes jokes about having to get a woman in the mood.

Mike was a fit sportsman when he met Amabel but he has put on weight and become the kind of bloke who slumps on the sofa after work, leaving her to get on with the housework. After first taking off his smelly socks and flinging them in the corner, that is.

He blames his mother for his unwillingness to pitch in around the house. "I'm from the old-fashioned school," he says. "My mother used to do all the ironing, cooking and cleaning." Clueless, is more Amabel's view. "He has never ironed anything in his life and he didn't cook at all," she says. "He didn't have a clue!"

In the first episode of Fairy Godfathers, to be screened on Channel 4 at 9pm tomorrow night, Nick and Colin set out to change all that.

Chris's girlfriend Becky and Amabel nominated their respective partners for the programme. "They sold it to us on the premise that they could make him (Mike) into a wonderful husband," says Amabel says.

Far more than Chris and Mike's dress sense is to be made over. Becky wants Nick to make her man more domesticated, as well as encouraging him to trade in his Mickey Mouse waistcoat and check shirts for something more modern.

Amabel, meanwhile, wants Colin to teach her husband how to iron, lose weight... and brush up on his oral hygiene. "He never used to clean his teeth before he came to bed!" she says.

Nevertheless, even with hopes of a much-improved husband at the end of it, Amabel admits she was worried about leaving him alone with Colin for a week.

"He didn't know any gay people at all," she says. "Mike is used to rugby players and farmers. I was worried about how he would manage."

For their part, Colin and Nick admit they weren't quite ready for the size of the task they had taken on.

"If I had known what I was letting myself in for, I probably wouldn't have done it," says Colin, a 38-year-old fashion designer from Bingley and whose Bent And Currupt fashion label, launched in 1988, is a favourite of celebs such as Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor and Robbie Williams.

"It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It wasn't just a fluffy makeover show where you buy some new clothes and sort out someone's hair."

Nick, a 29-year-old freelance personal stylist and shopper from London, whose clients have included David Duchovny, Vin Diesel and Ioan Gruffudd, agrees. "We knew all about the makeover side of things - that's my job really, so it didn't faze me," he says. "But I didn't grasp what it would be like living with them! Until you actually do it, you don't realise what it'll be like, then all of a sudden the crew leaves you with this stranger one night, and neither of you have got a clue what to do. It was a big eye-opener."

Not only for Nick and Colin. Their first meeting with Chris and Mike takes place at a local hunt gathering.

"When we met them, they looked horrified," Nick says. "They asked us what we wanted to drink. I was gagging for a pint of lager, and they were astonished. They had expected us to drink white wine spritzers.

"Not knowing any gay people, they just go by all the stereotypes. Such as when we were going out on the town, they were expecting us to put on make-up and dresses, as if all gay men are transvestites."

Then there was Mike pulling that chest of drawers across in front of his bedroom door. It didn't actually happen, Mike insists: he was just trying to wind Colin up.

He certainly succeeded. "They automatically think any gay guy will fancy them, as if they fancy every woman they ever set eyes on!" says Colin.

"I wasn't offended, but I think we were both a bit shocked at how nave they were." However, the prejudice wasnot all on one side. Nick and Colin freely admit that before making the programme their idea of the typical straight British male was a bloke with the fashion sense of Alan Partridge, the emotional awareness of C3PO, the personal hygiene of Wayne Slob and the culinary skills of King Alfred.

As the week wore on they were surprised at just how willing Chris and Mike were to change.

The "gay paranoia" was the first thing to go out of the window. You could really see those attitudes changing," says Colin. "I think Mike learned gay people are just the same as straight people, fundamentally, apart from what they do when they go to bed."

As the barriers of mistrust began to crumble, Nick and Colin found Chris and Mike opening up too. Colin says he was surprised at how much more intimate their conversations became.

"It was emotionally quite draining, but really enlightening," he says. "I don't think straight men have much of an outlet for talking about their emotions. It's un-manly to talk about it with your mates, and with women friends it may be misconstrued. So this gay person dropping into their lives somehow constituted a safe haven."

Colin and Nick learned a thing or two themselves, too. Nick in particular surprised himself at the way he took to life on the farm.

"I think Chris liked the fact I was willing to muck in," he says. "That was a learning process for me - it was completely alien, I never dreamed I'd do that in my life, but I really loved it."

It wasn't all plain sailing.

One evening the foursome went to the local pub. "It was quite frightening," says Colin. "It was where all the farmers go at the weekend and it was a bit boisterous. We're in there with a camera crew with Mike and Chris. Nick and I are dressed to death, and you could sense the guys in the bar getting a bit agitated and uptight. They were shouting things over, and one of them came over and whacked Nick so hard on his backside. It felt really hostile."

By the end of the week, however, Nick and Colin and Chris and Mike are getting on like wildfire - and the Yorkshiremen do seem to have changed for the better, at least as far as the women in their lives are concerned.

"Mike does a lot more around the house," says Amabel. "He will come home now and do bits and bobs. He's still not keen on the ironing, but he has cooked a few times."

And his dress sense? "Much better! Jeans and T-shirts. People at work have even commented on how his shirts and ties co-ordinate!"

Mike agrees he has changed. "I wouldn't say he (Colin) has dramatically changed my sexuality or anything," he says. "But yes, he's shown me how to wear clothes." But why does Amabel think it took a gay bloke to help her man get in touch with his feminine side? Why couldn't he learn it from her?

"I think the fact it is coming from another bloke made it look as if it was all right," she says.

Whatever, she loves the result.

Fairy Godfathers, Channel 4, 9pm tomorrow

Updated: 09:58 Wednesday, April 28, 2004