When David Attenborough met the lost Biami tribe of Papua New Guinea in 1967 he relied on a warm smile and a few simple hand gestures to discover what they had in common.

The remarkable, unscripted encounter became a ground breaking TV moment – an example of real TV at its finest.

Half a century later, Channel 4 bosses decided to launch their own anthropological experiment with a tribe of nomadic cattle-herders.

And who did they send to a remote Namibian village to meet the Himba tribe?

Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt – with her hair straighteners and a supply of frozen ready meals.

Along with the rest of her famous-for-being-on-TV family in an exact replica of their house in County Durham.

Because what could be a more “real” than building a stone clad-semi on a plot of African scrubland, fitting it out with thousands of mod cons and inviting your semi-nomadic neighbours round to ooh and ah over microwaves, IPhones, and biscuit tins?

The four part series, called The British Tribe Next Door, was unveiled by excited C4 execs at the Edinburgh TV festival.

They clearly think they have a huge hit on their hands – comparing it to the 2007 series Meet The Natives, where five South Pacific tribesmen came to the UK.

They say the Himba “welcomed the opportunity to assess and judge at first hand the sedentary, high tech and consumerist Western lifestyles they have heard about but never seen close-up.”

What a load of old codswallop.

This “reverse anthropological exchange” sounds like gimmicky, exploitative reality TV of the worst possible kind.

Two different cultures learning from each other – or privileged white folk showing the poor black natives how they could be living? Really?

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