TV REVIEW:I JOINED Francis Brennan's tour bus in Barcelona six weeks ago for the first episode of his Grand Tour (RTÉ1, Sunday), when the suave Kerry hotelier began his latest TV wheeze, acting as a tour guide for a coachload of Irish tourists around Europe.
He was full of fun, camping it up, having a laugh with his 16 paying tourists, loving being the leader – but, oh dear, when I checked back in this week, for the final episode, his mood had changed considerably. Rome was their final destination, and even the white flag that Brennan carried so his group could find him was wilting. Trailing through the streets of Rome, the usually effervescent hotelier was clearly tired of the whole thing. “Come on now, Geraldine, don’t dilly-dally. You’ll know nothing when we get home,” he barked, not bothering to conceal the edge in his voice, and, “Don’t stand on that cat,” to no one in particular – as if he had long ago decided that the group weren’t even to be trusted to do the right thing around domestic animals. “The toilets are atrocious in Rome. There’s no toilet seats: you hover”: Brennan’s nothing if not detailed in his travel tips. As the final credits rolled and people were swapping contact details, Brennan grumped, “I won’t be calling any of them.”
The series was worth trying because he is good telly value – when it’s not 30 degrees and he hasn’t been walking for six hours – but this grand adventure didn’t work. The people were too nice, they’d paid for their trip and they didn’t have to act up or behave in a particularly interesting way. They were simply on their holidays. In a Channel 4 version, the passengers compete to stay on the bus and not be voted off by their fellow travellers, which makes them sing for their supper, though that’s not particularly brilliant, either: coach trips and entertaining TV aren’t a good match.
ANOTHER HOLIDAY-THEMED show dropped a little incongruously in the otherwise festive schedule was the entertaining Butlin's Story (UTV, Monday), a history of the holiday camp. It's 75 years since Billy Butlin had the brainwave of developing camps where ordinary working folk could go on holiday and where everything was laid on for an all-in price – even the "good morning campers" wake-up call broadcast directly into the brightly coloured chalets. The camps were in locations with less than exotic names, such as Skegness, Minehead, Clacton and Mosney (the only one in Ireland), and some were huge: one could hold 10,000 holidaymakers at a time. The story was told through the very fond reminiscences of some of the original visitors and redcoats. Butlin quickly realised that the way to break down British reserve was to get people entering competitions and playing together, and it was the redcoats' job to get everyone involved, whether it was the bonny-baby contest or the Miss Holiday Princess swimsuit parade. One redcoat recalled that part of his job involved "grabbing a granny" for the pram race. In the archive footage grannies were littered all over the track – a modern-day health-and-safety officer would have a fit.
The archive footage was evocative, particularly the scenes in a camp in 1939 when young men danced, played football and took part in the knobbly-knees contests, all blithely unaware that war was around the corner. Every night Mum and Dad would go to the on-site theatre and be entertained by budding new acts such as Cliff Richard and Jimmy Tarbuck, keeping an eye out for the noticeboard at the side of the stage where your chalet number appeared if your child needed attention. Most of the camps closed in the 1980s – cheap package holidays to the sun killed them off – but more than a million people holiday in the three remaining Butlin’s resorts every year. But was it really that sunny all the time? Did it never rain in Skegness? All the footage was of sunny days and happy people. Surely there were some negatives about the Butlin’s experience. If there was, this relentlessly positive look at a British institution didn’t go there.
REV (BBC2, TUESDAY), the gently funny series starting Tom Hollander as Adam, an Anglican vicar in a rundown parish in London, finished this week with a superb episode that could have so easily slipped into mushy sentimentality, with its pregnancy, death and waifs-and-strays Christmas dinner that looked from a distance like the Last Supper, but, thanks to the balance of humour and grit that this series got so right, it was sweet without being maudlin. Geoffrey Palmer turned up as Adam's right-wing father in law – "the social hand grenade" – and bumptious lay reader Nigel was worried about Alex's plans to reinstate midnight Mass – or, as he sniffily called it, "the religious equivalent of a kebab". He was right. It was full of rowdy drunks straight from the pub, prompting Adam to have a meltdown on the alter: the unlikeliest material for what was a truly hilarious scene.
THERE WAS NO escaping food this week. At some point every fashionable telly chef appeared on screen, mostly doing fiendishly difficult-to-remember new twists on the traditional Christmas dinner. Raymond Blanc cooked a five-course feast for family and friends on Raymond Blanc's Christmas Feast (BBC2, Friday), and of course the recipes were impossible to follow unless you're pretty handy in the kitchen anyway – though that never spoils the enjoyment of his shows, which are really all about him. It's why they have Blanc out getting the ingredients, including this week's trip to the forest for chestnuts – "Oose is the biggest? Of course it is Raymond's!" he said to no one in particular.
Nigel Slater's Simple Christmas (BBC1, Wednesday) was all whispery good taste and food you actually might cook – though that business of people having a signature stew is a bit much. As in every year, Jamie Oliver, in Jamie's Christmas with Bells On (Channel 4, Tuesday), wins hands down for making you think you could actually cook like he does. Though what's with calling them "Brussels"? Is it not fashionable to say "sprouts" any more? Of course, Oliver also calls them "little bad boys" in an attempt to make the slimy mini cabbages a bit edgy. You'd expect that in Jamie's pukka world, but "Brussels"?
All the TV cooks have one piece of advice in common, though. When it comes to roast potatoes, it’s best to cook them in goose fat. The shops are still open. You have time. Happy Christmas.
Get stuck into...
The Gruffalo's Child(Christmas Day, BBC1) Gorgeous animated version of the modern children's classic voiced by Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane and John Hurt.
