Catford, south-east London. Idris Elba – handyman, barman, mobile phone repairer, chef, delivery driver and DJ – is having a run-in with new neighbour Kim Kardashian over the communal garden. It’s Idris’s pride and joy, where he tends his brassicas and makes perfume out of rose petals and water that he sells on Etsy. First, he finds towels hanging off his pergola. Two days later, a paddling pool. Then one of those rotary washing lines with a squeak “that went right through me”, says Idris with a shudder. As for bus driver Kim, having a garden to call her own is “a huge blessing” and she refuses to stop sunbathing in it. Let the neighbour wars begin!
This is a reality TV spoof with a difference: the first deepfake comedy to grace our screens. So not only do you see a person who sounds and acts exactly like Kardashian griping about the garden hose, wheelbarrow and Flymo Elba has placed on her path to block access to the garden (“Once, I had to jump eight things,” she wails. “Do I look like a hurdlist?”), she looks exactly like her, too. Welcome to Deep Fake Neighbour Wars (ITVX), where thanks to some ethically questionable and up-to-the-minute AI technology I don’t fully understand, we can now indulge in such puerile pleasures as watching Harry Kane have his patio tile cracked by Stormzy. Or Olivia Colman and monosyllabic hubby Jay-Z arguing with Tom Hiddleston (an estate agent, obvs) over his renaming of their cat Giovani. Or Usain Bolt and new wife Phoebe Waller-Bridge-Bolt nicking neighbour Rihanna’s pants. Or Greta Thunberg losing it on the local Facebook community page over a year-round Christmas garden display by Conor McGregor and Ariana Grande. Ha ha … but is it OK? Only, perhaps, because it’s so silly.
