The Real Marigold on Tour was like a pensioner on a long-distance trek - completely tired: review
A frosty legal letter must have prompted the disclaimer at the top of The Real Marigold on Tour (BBC One). The show, it explained, is “inspired but otherwise unrelated to” the hit film whose brand identity has been shamelessly filched. It portrays, furthermore, “the authentic experience of a group of famous senior citizens”.
Authentic? Pull the other one. “The group have decided,” Tom Hollander’s voice-over kept saying. The only decision any of them took was who got the best bedroom. The answer: Miriam Margolyes.
India, Japan and the US were explored in two previous series, now the idea is to see how the aged get by elsewhere in the world. The first stop: Chengdu in China, where the concept of British pensioners choosing to live out their golden years is far less plausible. So this was much more overtly a travelogue.
The problem is that the quartet of oddballs were not particularly good or charming guides. Vast dull chasms of time went on transport, accommodation and introductions. It felt like being trapped in the opening chapter of a windy novel.
The chef Rosemary Shrager was easily the most game and culturally open. The charms of former darts player Bobby George, recently in ITV’s wearyingly similar Gone to Pot, are thinning out. Ditto Wayne Sleep’s pirouettes. Who didn’t want to send him home when, at a ticket kiosk, his best guess for four was “quattro”?
Mainly, we need to talk about Miriam. Margolyes, 76, was a fun novelty in the first series but a little of her shtick goes an awfully long way. A peremptory old fusspot whose dagger stares blame random individuals for imperceptible slights, she didn’t eat the food, got frightfully stroppy at the enormo-pool and then burst into floods of tears in the panda sanctuary. “Interesting,” suggested Sleep. Not really. She’s just alarmingly in touch with her inner six-year-old.
There were some fun insights into the lives of Chinese retirees, but not enough to fill a whole hour. This was quite a clever concept once upon a time, but like a pensioner on a long-distance trek, it looks completely tired.