TV Review: Gerry's Big Decision – C4

Gerry's Big Decision C4

AS a business, you know things are bad when Gerry Robinson arrives at your door. The only person left to call is the Grim Reaper.

Gerry's Big Decision sees the entrepreneur, pictured, visit various strugglers to assess whether it's worth putting his hand in his pocket to rescue them. Basically, it's Dragon's Den gone wrong.

For his first outing, Gerry was looking at two breweries ready for the slops bucket. At its peak, Malcolm Gray's Itchen Valley Brewery was producing 29,000 pints a week, not all of them for Prince Harry. But the recession had hit hard and girlfriend Jane had sold her house and ploughed her £130,000 life savings in to keep the company alive.

"We have reached the point of no return," she said as Malcolm looked on morosely. "We can't go any further. It's just a long, slow, painful death."

Head brewer Rob, in particular, blamed Malcolm for this sorry state of affairs.

"He couldn't organise a ****-up in a brewery," he said. Which was true when you think that Rob had no hops.

But Gerry knows a good business when he sees one.

"A company like Itchen Valley is important because it represents the last bastion of British ale," said the guru, clutching his Emma Bridgewater mug.

He decided to put Jane in charge for a week to test the results, but not everyone was impressed.

"Is that the only thing you've come up with?" blurted Rob. "Did you bounce any other ideas round the room?"

Few businessmen have got to the top by tolerating outbursts from hop-boilers, and Gerry is no different.

"Do you know," he told Rob, "if you were working for me, I'd give you a right slap round the ear."

Since Gerry eventually injected £150,000 of his own cash into Itchen Valley, Rob might do well to purchase himself a hard hat.

Gerry also put £200,000 into O'Hanlon's brewery in Devon, whose owners Liz and John had borrowed three quarters of million against their home to keep it going.

Gerry would appear to be the Dragon who can't say no. Mind you, he's not the first person who beer's had that effect on.