Rory Cargill: TV’s Power to Shape History – an interview with television’s Beau Creme
Power
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Power 〰️
Image: Rebecca Need-Menear
The Edinburgh Fringe is back for 2026, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re taking on POWER: Who’s got it? Where is it? Where should it be? How do you get it? Our comedians are the only ones with the answers.
By Rory Cargill
Beau Creme has been a familiar face on our screens for almost 5 decades, hosting programmes from 80’s gameshow hit ‘Creme Delights’ to the newly broadcast retrospective documentary ‘On TV!’ We caught up with Beau at his home in Chipping Norton to ask him what changes he’s noticed over his decorated career.
Hi Beau, thanks for having us here today.
Beau Creme: Welcome to Creme Manor. Did you take a moment to enjoy the statue on the way in?
The one of you eating dinner off of the man’s back? It’s pretty hard to miss. Who is that and what’s the story there?
BC: That’s TV Director-General Sir Tim Crumblin. Though I loathe to call him ‘Sir’. Whoever knighted him should be shot for treason to this fine country.
The King?
Please, call me Beau. My shows put food on Crumblin’s table for decades, but when they rebooted Creme Delights, my landline remained silent. After years of this goose laying golden eggs right in his mouth, the least Crumblin could have done is reciprocate by putting food on my table. And now he is. In statue form for all eternity. Ironic, isn’t it?
What was the TV industry like in the days when Sir Crumblin was putting food on your table?
BC: I came up in the 80’s, a real golden age of British TV. Budgets were sky-high and incidences of lighting a cigar with a flaming bank note were through the roof. Plus competition was low; there were only 4 channels back then, not including the secret 5th one for The Society of Elite Gentleman of the… I’ve said too much, don’t publish that.
And how have things changed since then?
BC: Broadcasters became risk-averse. You used to get a bit of everything with variety shows. Now budgets are thinly spread across a million different interests and outlets. Plus various scandals over the years led to rules tightening. I mean, you accidentally kill one albatross on a nature segment and all of a sudden those RSPB nerds go crying to OFCOM. Royal Society for the Peddling of Bollocks, that’s what that should stand for. Write that down.
Do you think another Beau Creme could be made in today’s landscape?
BC: Absolutely not. Even if my gargantuan talent was repeatable — and trust me, they’ll be trying to figure that out in some lab somewhere — what’s going to be the making of a career now? Sloppy seconds-ing somebody else’s reboot? Appearing in a 3-minute long pilot? Having a viral argument on a reality TV show?
Some might point to your brief reality TV stint in the 00’s as a moment your career changed.
BC: I was a housemate on the first ever Big Brother and with hindsight, I see that my agents used it as a litmus test for my popularity amongst a new generation. Scandalously, I was voted out in the first round. And that wasn’t even my most shameful first round exit. That prize goes to my appearance on Naked Attraction years later. My bare bottom led to my rock bottom.
Do societal changes affect what we see on TV? Is it the cart leading the horse?
BC: Carts can’t lead horses, you silly thing. In the ‘10s, makeover shows were in and were highly influential. And no wonder, who wouldn’t want to look as gorgeous as host of Fat Families, Steve Miller? At the time, these shows were viewed as empowering and championing body positivity. I wish someone had championed a bit of body positivity when I was on Naked Attraction, let me tell you.
Looking back at episodes of 10 Years Younger now, it’s clear that forcing vulnerable people to undergo invasive plastic surgery was probably a bit rude. Now, due to societal changes, these shows are seen as nasty and they wouldn’t air today. Society dictates what’s acceptable and TV reflects that. To put it in a clever term that I just coined: it’s like the rickshaw leading the rickshaw operator.
Would you say then that television has lost the power it once yielded over society?
BC: Television, much like my waist size, is more than just a medium. It's a powerful outlet for artists to communicate diverse stories. But the stories that air are still chosen by a select few. That’s why with the rise of the internet, creators are finding ways around gatekeeping.
Last year I made a self-shot production ‘Washed Up’. Just me and my camera, surviving on a desert island for 2 weeks. It ended up being closer to 7 months — the local boatsman I paid to take me there never came back to pick me up. When I attempted to swim back to civilisation, I was caught in a big net by some local crab fishermen. Coincidentally, they'd also caught Philip Schofield in the same net, who had found himself in a similar predicament.
They said there was only room on the boat for one of us, so they made us fight for our spot. That dirty bastard Schofield wrapped barbed wire around his knuckles, so they threw me back. Eventually I made it home on a raft I built from puffin beaks. I wish the animal native to that island hadn't been so cute. Made it so much harder to bludgeon them. Well, at least the RSPB didn’t find out this time.
Rory Cargill: On TV! is running at Assembly George Square (Crate) from Aug 5-30th, 18:55. Tickets here
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