I don’t understand what the Carry On element of Celebrity Carry On Barging (Channel 5) is. Debbie McGee may have a hint of Barbara Windsor about her, and she does mention that her late husband never wore PJs in bed. But her bra doesn’t fly off on the canalside, and Nigel Havers doesn’t do a Kenneth Williams impression, flare his nostrils and give us an “Oooh I say” as the barge slides into a tunnel.
No, it’s just four celebs (the above, plus Lorraine Chase and Simon Callow) on a canal boat for a few days. It’s not unlike the shows Prunella Scales and Timothy West did, or John Sergeant. Celebrity barging – it’s a TV thing now.
This lot are actually on two boats – Debbie and Nigel together, and Lorraine and Simon elsewhere. Celebrity bargers require a little extra space, for clothes and egos. There are the usual steerage issues, lock dramas, bumps and scrapes, low branches and light bants. They drop into a vineyard, and a pub, where they have a sing-song and meet a skunk. Lorraine falls in the canal – it was, as Debbie says, bound to happen.
The Scales & West barge-alogue was more touching because they are married, and because of Prunella’s dementia. Sergeant’s was more journalistic, as John kept hopping off in search of canalside stories. This is basically Celebrity Big Brother, but moving very slowly through the English countryside. It’s quite nice I suppose, mainly for them. I think I’m just disappointed after the promise of the title.
There’s more boating in Cruising with Jane McDonald (Channel 5). It’s a bus woman’s holiday as she made her name cruising, and singing, on TV. But this time she’s passenger, not crew, on a massive floating shopping centre in the Caribbean.
She meets her doppelganger, is moved to tears by a church service in Nassau and dives with sharks. She also has some advice about knickers, which ones to bring (never white). Useful then, if you’re going on a cruise. Which I’m not. Ever.
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