What on earth has happened to Top Billing?

From the title sequence where the can-can dancer is lifting her dress to the very first link where the presenter is stalked by a disturbingly camp shirtless creature, you get a nasty feeling that this is no longer the Top Billing you used to love and admire.

Gone are the days of classy and witty presenters.  Their replacements sell a very different lifestyle - whether it's the fake-as-a-Thai-ladyboy Ursula Chikane (nee Stapelfeldt) or the garish Jeannie D, who loving fondles a large telescope whilst giving the camera such a well practiced sultry glance that you have very little trouble imagining how she got the job in the first place.

The reporters sink even lower with their cleavage and attention grabbing posing.  Inserts feature some woman called Lorna throwing herself at half naked men at the Mr South Africa pageant or Janez Vermeiren continuously ripping off his shirt to compare his body with that of an innocent bystander, and so sincerely that you feel you are intruding on a very personal moment.

Even the signature interior decorating showpiece has had a sleazy make-over where Jeannie D takes appreciation to a whole new level.  She traipses around the show house seductively, one moment feeling up the fabrics and faking ecstasy and the next trying to straddle a wooden horse in her hot pants and purring provocatively that she should have brought her bikini instead. At the end of this vulgar spectacle, you could be forgiven for thinking that the owners of the house would probably need to have it fumigated.

About as classy as a high class hooker, and just as tired and desperate, Top Billing has clearly fallen upon hard times.  And who are we to judge? After all, if all else fails, sex still sells.

Top Billing hangs on for dear life on SABC3 on Tuesdays at 20h00