Danielle Lloyd – Keep Fit Look Fit

Danielle Lloyd was one of the Celebrity Big Brother contestants responsible for the show’s racism controversy several years ago. Danielle,  Jo O’Meara and Jade Goody (described by Charlie Brooker as “The World’s Thickest Coven” ) ganged up on beautiful, polite and successful Indian actress Shilpa Shetty sparking  44,500 complaints to Ofcom, withdrawal of sponsorship deals and an investigation by the police.

British television at its finest

It’s probably a bit unfair to still be banging on about it. Poor Danielle. You spend the first years of the your career doing good works like winning Miss Great Britain or dating footballers  or posing nude for Playboy and all anybody ever remembers is that time you said that the Indian lady should “fuck off home.” in front of 5 million people.

They're best of friends now, of course.

This workout DVD “Keep Fit, Look Fit” was released the same year so perhaps it was intended as recompense for her previous actions. Her gift to the nation to say “sorry”.

If so, it’s a terrible gift. She would have been better off producing the Danielle Lloyd “Not-A-Racist” Perfume instead. Although she probably did that as well.

Buy it for the non-racist in your life

The workout DVD is an uninspiring collection of dance workouts led by trainer Steve Rich. If I was feeling charitable I might assume that the makers of the DVD were aiming for it to be as natural as possible which is why they decided to keep in all the bits where Danielle flubs her lines, messes up the moves or looks generally awkward. They cleverly managed to prevent the thing looking over-rehearsed by not doing any rehearsals.

Several years after releasing the workout, Danielle moved into acting and appeared in Dominic Burns’ 2010 film “Cut” - the world's first single continuous-shot horror movie.  Danielle’s character sets up the movie by providing the pre-credits sequence. Sort of like Drew Barrymore in Scream.

I know Halloween’s over but huddle round anyway and enjoy this terrifying dialogue. Remember this is from an actual film that some poor sods paid money to see.  Danielle plays Annette, a babysitter, who phones the mum of the kid she’s looking after .

Try to imagine that the lines are being said by someone with the acting skills of a late night soft porn advert and someone who sounds like she’s on that supposedly “hidden camera” Kindle advert.

Mrs Burton: Is Sandy OK? 

Annette:  Well, she’s not hurt or anything... 

Mrs Burton: But?  

Annette:  She keeps on getting herself worked up about this clown. 

Mrs Burton: Clown? 

Annette: She keeps saying that it is talking to her. That it’s going to hurt her. 

Mrs Burton: What are you talking about, Annette? What clown? 

Annette: The life size clown at the end of her bed. 

Mrs Burton: Annette, listen to me very carefully. Get Sandy out of the house right now! Run to the neighbours and call the police! 

Annette: I don’t understand. What? 

Mrs Burton:  Sandy doesn’t have a toy clown!

Da da daaaa!

To be fair, although the acting improves slightly for the rest of the film, the storyline doesn’t. The rest of film takes place at a different time and could be summarised as follows: “There are some people. And then they hear some scary noises. And then scary clowns want to kill them dead.” Frankly, if you told that as a spooky story at Brownie camp eight year old girls would mock you for being lame. And rightly so.

I’m not sure whether Danielle really has a future in acting but having watched both “Keep Fit Look Fit” and “Cut” today, I know which one I preferred.  Only one of those DVDs features a Rufus Hound doppelganger with an axe embedded in his midriff. That’s one hell of a fitness workout.

Best Bit

Danielle is sporting a comprehensive selection of Danielle Lloyd 'Designed4Love' workout wear. At the time of the DVD’s release, this clothing was available for purchase by the likes of you and me. Sadly the Designed4Love website has now closed as has that avenue of potential dream fulfilment.

Happily you get to see what must amount to the entire collection here. There are short sleeved tops, long sleeved tops, hoodies, sweat pants and a lovely velour tracksuit. Everything you could ever dream of.

Feel the quality.

Weirdest Bit

Danielle has her own logo. Clearly she recognised that she was a brand and needed to be marketed as such. As well as featuring on her designer workwear it’s also displayed on the set which along with the shiny gold decorations radiates an air of a market stall selling fake designer handbags.

The logo is a sort of backwards D dash L thing that weirdly looks more like it says ‘CH’. It looks like it’s trying to copy someone else’s brand but I can’t work out whose. Chanel? Chantelle? Chessington World of Adventures? I have no idea.

Worst Bit

It’s hard to choose what with the shitty production values, the terrible extras and the plinky plonky fucking music, but I think, on balance, my least favourite parts are any bit where Danielle is required to speak. Particularly the bits where she does a bit of unconvincing banter with Steve.  Talking like a believable human being isn’t really her strong point.

"Where are you feeling it, Danielle?”

“In my ... muscles?”

Danielle tries to sound like she knows what she’s talking about.

Difficulty Level.

Oh, you know, it’s fine. Not especially hard. Not especially easy. It’s like a great big dollop of meh.

In her introduction, Danielle says that she likes her exercise to be fun and that the best kind of exercise is where you’re having so much fun, you don’t even realise you’re working out.

Yeah, that sounds good. You should have tried that here, Danielle.

Could I do this if I was a racist? Could I?

Would I do this workout again?

Well no. Because of it being shit and everything. Tell you what though, if they make Cut 2 : Cut Harder and Danielle scores another role then I’m right there. This time I think they should start with that story where the girl hears a tapping on the roof of the car and the policeman tells her not to turn around because  it turns out to be blood dripping from her boyfriend’s severed head. That one’s a classic.