Matt Allwright's always on our side

Consumer programmes have been around longer than I can remember. From Braden and Rantzen issuing advice with a Saturday night entertainment spin to folksy egomaniac Martin Lewis promoting his financial website, I’ve probably dipped into most of them at some time or other. Presentation is key, and trust is pretty much top of the priority list for the host’s attributes. For me, John Stapleton was too earnest, Nicky Campbell too pompous, Hugh Scully too nice and Anne Robinson too snarlingly rude..

Watchdog has been the top brand, on our screens in various formats for four decades. It’s usually an easy watch without being ‘appointment to view’, a harmless blend of entertainment and information which might just be useful. However it can also set pulses racing and spirits rising when the series goes after criminals ripping us off in everyday situations and confronts the bastards. Cue applause and shouts of “Lock ‘em up!” from sofas nationwide. Some such scenarios warrant a programme or series to themselves and are the showcases for first-class investigative journalism. 

Donal McIntyre would risk his life going undercover, Dom LIttlewood’s Essex geezer schtick goes down well reporting on dodgy used car salesmen and purveyors of fake goods and then there’s the legendary Roger Cook. After years of presenting the excellent Checkpoint on Radio 4, the burly journalist switched to ITV for The Cook Report, doorstepping the villains in their own backyard and scaring them shitless. You didn’t mess with Roger! However, his was not a face which lends itself to the lighter side of current affairs. Matt Allwright’s, on the other hand, does, and he combines the best qualities of previous and contemporary hosts of TV consumer shows in one single package.

While he has branched out into other types of broadcasting, I most readily associate him with Rogue Traders, which has existed as a stand-alone programme and, most often, a feature within Watchdog and now The One Show.  I probably first saw him in the mid-Noughties, wearing biker’s leathers and riding pillion behind sidekick Dan Panteado These black-clad lone rangers would swoop around the country in pursuit of incompetent electricians, overcharging plumbers, illegal fly-tippers and builders hell-bent on stealing thousands from unsuspecting home-owners just like us. There but for the grace of God…. Sometimes Matt resorts to a disguise and on occasions he ends up in a Benny Hill-style comedy chase. I love those!

In the past decade the Beeb has found plenty of other work for him to do. There was more of a feelgood consumerism factor in Keeping Britain Safe 24/7, then in 2019 he was championing the return to use of derelict houses in Britain’s Housing Scandal, although I confess I find Homes Under the Hammer more entertaining. In 2016 Matt reached the final of a ‘law and order’ Pointless Celebrities show and ten years previously had even been considered to possess enough street cred to present an edition of Top of the Pops, albeit in its dying days. 

With Angie hooked on Emmerdale, I haven’t seen any of Allwright’s stints presenting BBC’s The One Show, scheduled opposite each other, and am unlikely to witness the Watchdog slot in the programme in the future. However, during last summer’s Covid first wave shielding period, it was a pleasure to be distracted by his typically laconic but professional presentation of BBC1’s live consumer morning show, Your Money and Your Life. His ex-soap star co-host Kym Marsh may have nabbed most of the headlines but their seemingly off-the-cuff banter was always engaging, and we were left in no doubt about where his football loyalties lay (Liverpool). 

There have been other ventures, too, which I haven’t watched, but it’s the live consumer programmes and interaction with real people which are his specialities. It’s a genre which, like cooking and property-hunting, has burgeoned in recent years and coronavirus times in particular. For all the impeccable journalistic credentials of Nikki Fox et al, it’s Matt Allwright’s laidback personality and dogged determination out in the field which stands out. He looks and sounds so ordinary, decked out in casual clothes and a quick wit. You’d probably have a lovely chat with him in the pub, at a bus stop or queuing for a supermarket till. Whatever his role on TV you just know Matt is going to be more than merely all right.