Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure review: Noel is the greatest tragicomic character of our time and this dark horse has as much charm as Clarkson's Farm
Noel Edmonds ' Kiwi Adventure
Rating:
The pitch for Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure must have been: let's do Clarkson's Farm, but with Noel Edmonds. Yes, let's. And it does not disappoint. It's as if one of Alan Partridge's most desperate pitches finally got made.
I had, in fact, stopped holding out for 'youth hostelling with Chris Eubank ' or 'arm wrestling with Chas and Dave' but now feel hopeful again.
This is top-quality entertainment, possibly not for the right reasons, but I watched two episodes (of the six) and was transfixed.
Edmonds may be the greatest tragi- comic character of our time.
Noel Edmonds moved to New Zealand in 2018.
Ah, so that's where he's been for the past seven years, you probably hadn't been wondering. He was no longer a fan of Britain.
He says: 'All the things I miss about Britain are the reasons I left. It changed so much, so fast, so fundamentally, that I found myself missing a quieter country.' He then adds perceptively: 'We are not trees so we can move.'
His estate, River Haven, is a monumentally stunning 800 acres. Here he is attempting to run a restaurant, a pub, a vineyard, a wellness centre, a general store and a coffee shack.
He wants to be clear: this is not about him.
He and his 'earth angel' wife, Liz, 'could sit in a big house somewhere but we feel we need to make a difference'.
He met Liz when she was his make-up artist on Deal or No Deal. She first walked into the make-up room at 11.06 on October 6 in 2006, so now all the clocks in their house are set to 11.06. 'I knew she was in the room before I turned round,' he remembers. 'You will never pull us apart… we are one.' They are happy together.
They have warrior statues in their private garden 'because Liz believes I was an emperor or leader of men in my past'. (He also has a giant praying knight statue to counter 'dark forces'.) It's one fascinatingly bizarre moment after another.
They look through a box of old photos and he finds one fromLive Aid. 'My company organised the air transport,' he says, 'at no cost to them.'
He later says, randomly, 'I pay my tax.' It feels as if he's pleading with us: how could you not love me? How? That's the 'tragi' part, I guess.
He is 76, with hair that still defies gravity and, you could say, fashion. He looks remarkably unchanged. He has, it turns out, quite the wellness regime.
It involves lying on a bed under suspended crystals, pulse electromagnetism therapy, 'tranquil power' – using a multigym slowly, from the looks of it – saunas, ice-baths, a hyperbaric chamber ('it shoots pure oxygen into your body; I'm rocking!') and also 'VIBE'.
This he explains, is his acronym for 'visualisation of body energy'. (Let's all pretend we haven't noticed it should be 'VOBE'.)
He and Liz only drink 'structured water', which they make themselves. (Look it up.)
Wikipedia describes it as a 'scam' but he says it is better absorbed than regular water.
He likes to round off his sentences with: '…and that's a scientific fact'. Later it is: 'Your body is lighter after death because your soul weighs something… scientific fact.'
No one has yet identified the scientific universe Edmonds gets his facts from. Remember when he said bad vibes could give you cancer? Or did he mean vobes?
All this, and we haven't even got to his business yet! So, his pub is not called The Farmer's Dog and he doesn't sell a beer called Hawkstone.
Instead, it is called 'The Bugger Inn' and his beers include Tits Up, Boring Bastard and Old Git. There is also a Dickens Cider 'that is very popular with the ladies.'
No one has yet identified the humour universe he gets his jokes from either.
He doesn't draw Clarkson-style crowds. On the day his restaurant opens for the season only a couple of people turn up. (It is pouring with rain, to be fair.)
The pub stages a Halloween party that seems to have all the atmosphere of an underpopulated Saga event.
He worries that the local community won't accept him but, lest we forget, 'there are people who have lived here all their lives who are saying thank you, thank you'. No, thank you, Noel. This is a blast.
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