“Is this the most odious man on television”

The headline Is this the most odious man on television? crystallizes the public image of Dexter Mayhew just as he is presenting his own late-night music show. It does more than insult him: by pairing a question about television’s most objectionable man with his photograph and the single-word label beneath it, the newspaper converts his on-screen confidence into a verdict about who he is. Dexter’s attempt to dismiss that verdict, and the moment another presenter repeats its wording to him, make the phrase a compact measure of the distance between his self-image and his public persona.

The headline as a public label

The phrase appears as a newspaper headline, divided across two lines before Dexter sees that it sits above his picture. For an instant, he thinks the picture must have been printed by mistake. Beneath it is the word Smug, arranged as though it were his surname: the imagined Dexter Smug. That small visual joke gives the headline a sharper effect than a general complaint. The paper does not merely say that he behaves smugly; its layout makes smugness seem like his identifying name.

The headline’s question also leaves room for a pointed kind of certainty. Grammatically it asks whether Dexter is the most odious man on television; visually, the photograph and label supply the answer before the review’s argument begins. The question therefore works less as an open inquiry than as a provocation, inviting readers to look at his face through the judgment already attached to it. His brief suspicion that the photograph is a mistake records the shock of seeing that public judgment made so direct and personal.

Dexter reads the piece over a tiny espresso cup, holding it tightly between finger and thumb. The setting is modest, but the physical detail makes the encounter particular: a newspaper, a small cup, and a criticism he has not chosen to read. He has a clippings file in a Patrick Cox shoebox at the bottom of a wardrobe, yet decides not to keep this review. His decision contrasts with the care he has given other press material. Even as he tries to let this one go, the words have already reached him.

The review’s case against his television persona

The piece identifies Dexter as the presenter of Late-Night Lock-In, a late-night music show he has begun presenting after three years of what it calls largin’ it. Its attack is not limited to his appearance or to dislike of his success. It describes a performance: a public-schoolboy attempting to become a new lad, dropping his aitches and flirting with women while failing to recognize that younger viewers are laughing at him. The headline’s accusation of odiousness is thus supported by a more specific charge: that Dexter’s television persona looks calculated and out of step with the audience it seeks to impress.

The review also attacks his interviewing, describing his technique as famously inept and presenting watching it as a source of pleasure for viewers. Its deliberately extreme alternative is to brand one’s face with a steam iron set to linen. The excess is part of the review’s method: it turns television criticism into a comic spectacle and casts Dexter not simply as a bad presenter but as someone whose performance might provoke a physical recoil. The article names his cocky, pretty-boy face, his self-satisfaction, and his attempts to stay hip, making the headline’s broad insult feel like the summary of an accumulated case.

That criticism sits against Dexter’s own interpretation of his work. In the narration of his thoughts, he calls the attack tall poppy syndrome and the British Disease, insists that he likes his job and is good at it, and argues that presenting is harder than people think. He casts the presenter as someone who must be quick-thinking and willing to put himself on the line, then dismisses critics as spiteful and unworthy of statues. The sequence moves from defense of his competence to contempt for those judging it. Its increasingly forceful self-justification does not disprove the review; instead, it shows how difficult Dexter finds it to separate criticism of his television act from criticism of himself.

The phrase repeated in person

The headline returns in the workplace when Toby Moray enters in a tartan suit, with his on-screen make-up and hair slicked into a jokey quiff. He adopts the review’s wording to ask for the man it describes. The repetition changes the phrase from newspaper provocation into a face-to-face performance: Toby brings the public judgment into Dexter’s professional space, while appearing in the same kind of television styling that the review has made part of its target.

Dexter answers that Toby has found the person he is looking for, then struggles to produce a concise comeback. The exchange gives the headline an immediate comic reversal. Dexter’s reply agrees with the insult while redirecting it at Toby, but the narration shows that he cannot deliver it with ease. His co-presenter calls it a nice comeback and asks whether he has seen the previews. The word previews confirms that the phrase is circulating in connection with the show before the exchange, while Dexter’s difficulty and irritation show that knowing about the criticism has not made him comfortable with it.

Earlier, Emma Morley tells Dexter that she would not miss his big night, then kisses him with closed lips and leaves, ready for her own big day. That brief departure places his television occasion beside another consequential day in their shared life, without making the newspaper’s judgment the only event that matters. The headline, however, belongs specifically to Dexter’s public moment: it meets him through print, survives his effort to discard it, and is carried into the studio by a colleague.

Significance

The expression’s force comes from the contrast between what Dexter believes he is doing and what the review says viewers see. He regards himself as a capable presenter taking a difficult job seriously; the article depicts a self-satisfied performer whose attempts at knowingness expose his distance from his audience. Neither the headline nor Dexter’s private rebuttal settles that tension. The scene instead lets the disparity show through the headline’s visual joke, his defensive thoughts, and his awkward exchange with Toby.

As a recurring verbal sting within this sequence, the phrase makes television reputation tangible. It begins as a printed question, is reinforced by the review’s detailed portrait of Dexter’s act, and returns as a taunt spoken in person. Dexter cannot simply discard it with the clipping: even after deciding not to preserve the review, he encounters its wording again. Its movement from newspaper to conversation gives the criticism a life beyond the page, while the contrast between his confidence in his own abilities and his momentary loss for words keeps the question pointedly unresolved.