Oh God, Not Another Celebrity Travel Show.
Spare us, please.
I blame Michael Palin for starting this whole hamster wheel of celebrity travel shows. Back in the ’90s, he embarked on what was then a very original and informative documentary called ‘Around the World in 80 days. Palin is a naturally talented presenter, finding the human stories everywhere he goes. It was a huge success, and book deals followed.
He followed his ’80 Days’ programme with ‘Pole to Pole’ and then….
Then, everyone in TV land saw how popular the shows were, and the bandwagon has now almost collapsed under the strain of the number of shows that follow the ‘celebrity travelling’ format.
Last night I saw an advert for the latest iteration of this type of show, ‘Matt Baker’s Travels With Mum and Dad’. Seriously? I don’t doubt that Mr and Mrs Baker are lovely people, but I have no desire to watch them in any TV shows, so why have they been allowed to star in one?
TV execs have decided that what we need is a constant stream of celebs travelling far and wide to places most of us can only dream of visiting and reporting back with their tales of life abroad.
We had Joanna Lumley’s tours in Mongolia and Russia, vainly trying to convince us that if she had the chance, she’d 100% ditch her house in north London and run off with a Mongolian horseman if she had the chance.
What followed was bizarre because we then had comedian Jack Whitehall on his travels with his dad. His dad is good value and very dry, but do we need a travel programme featuring a celebrity and a close relation?
Well, apparently we do, because we have since been subjected to Bradley Walsh travelling with his son, Russell Howard travelling with his mum and Romesh Ranganathan also travelling with his mum.
The pitching meetings in TV studios must have been a wonderful place back then. Almost any stupid idea you could come up with was going to be accepted as long as it involved a. a celebrity and b. a member of their family.
If that family freebie travel fest weren’t enough, the latest to hit our screens would be Joe Lycett and friends in ‘Travel Man’.
