Rosie Jones is on a mission to put the Great back into Britain with her funny friends
Trip Hazard: My Great British Adventure Friday 8.30pm C4/ All 4
ED GRENBY - 18 April 2021
Rosie Jones had two truly inspiring reasons for making her new travel series – and one rather less edifying one. “It was always a dream of mine to make a travel show,” she says, “because they’re normally only made by male comedians who are able-bodied. And I’ve had enough of that. This is my time.”
That’s inspiring reason number one. “And we set out to make a joyous show,” she adds, “one that makes people smile during a notso-great time. To celebrate how beautiful and just amazing Great Britain is.” That’s number two. “Also I spent lockdown at my mum and dad’s house in Yorkshire, and I just had to get out of the house for a bit, you know?” You’ll forgive her that last, slightly-more selfish, motivation once you’ve watched the show and seen how handsomely she delivers on the promise of the first two reasons: Jones certainly breaks the travelogue mould; and the show does leave you with a warm-inside feeling of fuzzily patriotic joy. Silly but smart, with a breezily sarcastic narration from Olivia Colman (and gorgeous camerawork, too), it focuses lovingly on the oddballs and eccentrics Jones meets on the cross-country trip. But what were her favourite bits?
DISTRESSED ANTIQUES IN THE LAKES
“I had a different friend on each episode – or a celebrity we paid to pretend to be my friend. The Lake District is astoundingly pretty, and Scarlett Moffatt and I visited wonderful places, like Wordsworth’s cottage. We even stayed overnight in some stables – with the horses! But talking about it now brings back dark memories for me. First I broke an antique sausage-maker that its owner was demonstrating for us. And I was mortified, because it was more than 100 years old, and I have never come across an antique sausage-maker repair shop. “Then we took a trip on this steam engine, and they wouldn’t let me drive – I think there’s a local saying that goes, ‘Don’t let the woman with cerebral palsy drive the steam engine’ or something – so I got in the back and there was a little boy dressed up with a hat and neckerchief and stuff like it was 1800. And I thought he was a Victorian ghost. I had to ask the director, ‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ Luckily he was.”
FRIENDLY ‘VAMPIRES’ IN WHITBY
“I love Yorkshire’s seaside towns – I’m from one! – and Whitby’s the weirdest and most wonderful. Joe Wilkinson and I went fossil-hunting, we went on a fishing boat (it turns out I don’t have sea legs; but then I don’t really have land legs, either), and we hung out with the goths, who love Whitby because of its Dracula connections. I was disappointed, though, because the goths were so lovely: when we ordered pizza, it turned out they were almost all vegan. I had to have the blood-and-rotting-flesh-topped one myself.”
WRESTLING IN NORWICH
“I have never seen rain like we had in Norwich – but that was good, it felt like a proper British holiday, where you go, ‘Right. We can’t do any of the things we’d planned, what else can we do? Oh great, there’s a model railway museum.’ “In fact, we ended up at a blacksmith’s, and he immediately loved me and hated my friend Jamali Maddix. So everything Jamali did or said was wrong, and everything I did was amazing: he was giving me these boiling-hot pokers and saying, ‘You’ll be fine!’ “You know how sometimes on holidays you make an immediate BFF? Well, that blacksmith is mine. In fact, I’m going to get him to move in with me, him and this weird little piccolo whistle thing he played. “The highlight of the trip was the wrestling, though: there’s a wrestling school in Norwich, which we joined, and I ended up fighting three women. That’s actually a pretty standard Friday night for me; but now I’ve got the moves. So if my comedy career goes wrong, I can always fall back on the wrestling…”
WITCHCRAFT IN ANGLESEY
“Anglesey is so stunning that I became a witch. We met a nice Wiccan lady, who cast a few nature spells, and I was totally into it, really feeling at one with the incredible landscape in that part of Wales. That said, it was a pretty PG paganism: there were no bats or newts. “Jenny Eclair wasn’t into the witch thing, but she was cool with sheep’s backsides. There was this farmer, and he wanted us to help shave the sheep’s bottoms. I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I will almost certainly kill your sheep.’ And no one wants to die in an intimate-shaving accident, right? That’s not very feminist. But the farmer said it was really important, because when sheep have hair down there, the poo gets stuck in it and attracts insects… actually, I’m not sure that’s just sheep. Anyway, no sheep died in the making of this programme.”
Rosie Jones had two truly inspiring reasons for making her new travel series – and one rather less edifying one. “It was always a dream of mine to make a travel show,” she says, “because they’re normally only made by male comedians who are able-bodied. And I’ve had enough of that. This is my time.”
That’s inspiring reason number one. “And we set out to make a joyous show,” she adds, “one that makes people smile during a notso-great time. To celebrate how beautiful and just amazing Great Britain is.” That’s number two. “Also I spent lockdown at my mum and dad’s house in Yorkshire, and I just had to get out of the house for a bit, you know?” You’ll forgive her that last, slightly-more selfish, motivation once you’ve watched the show and seen how handsomely she delivers on the promise of the first two reasons: Jones certainly breaks the travelogue mould; and the show does leave you with a warm-inside feeling of fuzzily patriotic joy. Silly but smart, with a breezily sarcastic narration from Olivia Colman (and gorgeous camerawork, too), it focuses lovingly on the oddballs and eccentrics Jones meets on the cross-country trip. But what were her favourite bits?
“I love Yorkshire’s seaside towns – I’m from one! – and Whitby’s the weirdest and most wonderful. Joe Wilkinson and I went fossil-hunting, we went on a fishing boat (it turns out I don’t have sea legs; but then I don’t really have land legs, either), and we hung out with the goths, who love Whitby because of its Dracula connections. I was disappointed, though, because the goths were so lovely: when we ordered pizza, it turned out they were almost all vegan. I had to have the blood-and-rotting-flesh-topped one myself.”
“I have never seen rain like we had in Norwich – but that was good, it felt like a proper British holiday, where you go, ‘Right. We can’t do any of the things we’d planned, what else can we do? Oh great, there’s a model railway museum.’ “In fact, we ended up at a blacksmith’s, and he immediately loved me and hated my friend Jamali Maddix. So everything Jamali did or said was wrong, and everything I did was amazing: he was giving me these boiling-hot pokers and saying, ‘You’ll be fine!’ “You know how sometimes on holidays you make an immediate BFF? Well, that blacksmith is mine. In fact, I’m going to get him to move in with me, him and this weird little piccolo whistle thing he played. “The highlight of the trip was the wrestling, though: there’s a wrestling school in Norwich, which we joined, and I ended up fighting three women. That’s actually a pretty standard Friday night for me; but now I’ve got the moves. So if my comedy career goes wrong, I can always fall back on the wrestling…”
“Anglesey is so stunning that I became a witch. We met a nice Wiccan lady, who cast a few nature spells, and I was totally into it, really feeling at one with the incredible landscape in that part of Wales. That said, it was a pretty PG paganism: there were no bats or newts. “Jenny Eclair wasn’t into the witch thing, but she was cool with sheep’s backsides. There was this farmer, and he wanted us to help shave the sheep’s bottoms. I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I will almost certainly kill your sheep.’ And no one wants to die in an intimate-shaving accident, right? That’s not very feminist. But the farmer said it was really important, because when sheep have hair down there, the poo gets stuck in it and attracts insects… actually, I’m not sure that’s just sheep. Anyway, no sheep died in the making of this programme.”