The Best Job in the World, Thursday 9pm, BBC One

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:

So, what’s the best job in the world? According to the Queensland Tourism Board, it involves being sent to the Great Barrier Reef for a year to live in a luxury villa, writing a blog about your experiences and getting paid £70,000 for the privilege. What a drag.

This hour-long documentary told two stories: on one hand, we had the tale of the 50 candidates who made the shortlist (focusing on the British ones) after 34,000 people applied for the post; and lurking just below the surface, there was the story of one of the cleverest and most cost-efficient marketing campaigns of recent years.

Of course, the world and his wife know Brit Ben Southall got the job, because we all spent at least a week throwing darts at his picture and spitting every time his smug face appeared on TV – so it's slightly odd that the programme went down the "who will win?" route, trying, as it did, to ramp up the tension.

But it was fun watching the candidates desperately campaign for the role, even though they don't know what the judges (appropriately labelled "Gods" by one candidate) were actually looking for – and particularly since, unlike The Apprentice slagging each other off would get them dropped faster than you can say "Yasmina Siadatan".

The programme showed some likeable flaws in Ben: the personality test saw him moaning about the absence of sausages and bacon, he was a bit blasé (during the swimming task: "It's swimming isn't it? It's just floating in a pool"), and was very much aware that he's become one of 50 mini-marketing droids doing Queensland Tourism Board's work for free. But he seemed a decent, un-airbrushed kind of guy – and, starting from Wednesday, he now has the best job in the world. Yes, it's OK to hate him.

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Comments

[wendy]

He was the man for the job perfect for him and his lovely girlfriend, a happy ending at last, I hope they follow there story so we can all watch how they get on oh and the wedding too. I would like to be bridesmaid please, I am a beauty therapist and hairdresser. Well done Ben X

[SHOELADY]

I totally agree, he was articulate and plesant and he just seems like he would know how to do the job.
Good luck to him and Bree, hope they live happily ever after.....

[Rosie]

Good for him! The best man won!

To be honest he was the only one who seemed to have any modicom of sense and intelligence about him. The other british candidates seemed to be a coral reef short of an ocean most of the time. If that was the best 50 - what were the other 33,000 + like!

Still dead jealous of him though!