Ritchie plays a publicist observing and interacting on the story of Daisy Cockram, a police officer catapulted to fame after she is arrested for public indecency with a footballer in the back of a car and who becomes a national celebrity, which is soon shown to have many pitfalls.
JJ Merrick (Ritchie) is narrating the story of Daisy Cockram who is about to be "devoured by the venus flytrap of fame" after winning tickets to attend a première when she meets a leading professional footballer who seduces her.
The tabloid newspapers speedily track Daisy down using various underhand methods and she is soon splashed across the front pages of the media, with many lurid and exaggerated details about her life.
She has moved from her dingy tower-block flat to a large country mansion, has had numerous plastic surgery operations and is now dating a leading soap actor.
Daisy now has a seemingly "perfect life", in which she has become a sexual icon - an idol for many teenage girls, lots of money and a large personal staff.
Instead of Daisy taking his advice, she instead stages an orgy with the soap actor and releases it to the press, in a last attempt to claw back some public interest, showing as Merrick had observed that she has become totally addicted to celebrity.
Whatever It Takes attracted 2.7 million viewers when it was aired, losing out in its time slot to the BBC documentary Rivers presented by Griff Rhys Jones.