Flicking through my Sky planner last night, it looked like it was going to be a fairly desperate night of TV viewing. The selection of programmes on wasn’t very appealing to say the least. With an obvious theme of crime for the night, you’d better have a penchant for ‘CSI’ or ‘Criminal Minds’ or you ran the risk of sitting through an evening of growing celery with an almost famous chef on Channel 4.
How frustrating that 'Glee', 'The Apprentice' and 'Irish Dream Debs' (maybe I shouldn’t admit to watching this) were all on Wednesday night. Thankfully, Sky 1 didn’t let me down with 'An Idiot Abroad' and I think I may have found the funniest Travel/Anti-travel show of all time.
Some of you might recall/be in love with Karl Pilkington (the idiot) from Ricky Gervais’ podcasts. After years of chitchat about their "moron buffoon idiot" of a best friend for years on air, creative duo Gervais and Stephen Merchant have decided to unleash that said idiot on the world, and I couldn’t be happier.
Tasked with the job of travelling the globe visiting the Seven Wonders of the World, Karl embarked on what Gervais described as "one of the most expensive jokes" he has ever played. Karl expected a simple task of getting off a plane and travelling to each wonder but his friends (?) failed to inform the endearing idiot that they would stop at nothing to make sure he hated every minute of his trip. Why you ask? Well, because they can, and let’s admit it, it’s funny.
This week Karl headed to Petra in Jordan, in the hope of broadening his mind and experiencing different cultures. After a word with Stephen on the phone, he was told that they would be making a pit stop in Palestine - hardly the type of place you want to just drop into is it? After a mock kidnapping and a hilarious role play of the SOS phone call he would make in a real kidnapping scenario, Karl the idiot started to show himself as a completely naive comical genius. "I’m going to see a wall" Karl stated on his way to see the Wailing Wall. After a less than spiritual experience, he remarked that it reminded him of people writing to 'Jim’ll Fix It', you’re never going to get an answer back.
The whole programme is centred on Karl, who just like any other English bloke, speaks his mind and says what everyone else is too afraid to say (let’s be honest, we all have an image of Jesus on a donkey when we think of Jerusalem). While he does come out with some questionable lines, you can’t deny that the man has incredible comic timing. His honest, dry humour and total lack of arrogance make him a joy to watch. Perhaps that’s the key to the success of this show. Put a naturally funny guy in an awkward situation and hey presto, you’ve just made TV gold.
With a look of physical pain on his face, Karl’s next piece of torture in Palestine was to board a Smile Bus with an all dancing crew. As the bus stopped every 100 yards to let the men out onto the road to dance in front of cars and spread the love, the look on Karl’s face was priceless. As Karl took his chance and jumped out of the car in a quick dash, in the middle of a busy Palestinian road while exclaiming "I don’t dance at weddings, I’m not going to start doing it on the dual carriageway" I was in hysterics. It was perhaps one of the funniest pieces of television I’ve seen since Fr. Dougal’s side-splitting Riverdance in a rusty caravan in the classic 'Fr Ted'.
After that gem, I really thought the humour couldn’t get any better. But being the idiot that he is, Gervais and Merchant had set up a lovely 2 day camel ride through the desert for the already traumatised man. At this point Karl just couldn’t control any muscles in his jaw, as his mouth hung open throughout the whole desert scenes, and really who can blame him. After an 8 hour camel trek, disaster/salvation arrived as one of the camels had a break down in the desert (the idiot’s words, not mine).
After an entertaining observation from Karl that camels are supposed to be the ships of the desert and that they must have ended up with the Titanic, the camel and a slightly defeated Karl were picked up by a truck.
What initially attracted me to the show was the prospect of seeing Gervais and Merchant work their winning hilarity on screen. However after watching last night’s episode of the certainly different travel series, it will definitely be the humble Pilkington that will make me tune in next week.
Sarah Carty
