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Telegraph
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Race Across the World's reunion episode was a charming farewell to one of its best series
Nobody really needed Race Across the World: The Reunion (BBC One). The race finished last week in an entirely satisfactory manner. However, the BBC likes to flog a hit for all its worth, so viewers got this follow-up programme anyway. I'm glad we did. It was a suitably life-affirming farewell to a heartwarming series. Six months since the globe-trotting contest climaxed at the southernmost tip of India, our five intrepid pairs gathered to reflect on their epic 14,000km odyssey across China, Nepal and India. Meeting up with friends you made on holiday often backfires. Once the tans fade and the sundowners stop flowing, so does the conversation. Happily, this was a lot less awkward. They met as strangers but are forever bound together by their shared experience. The forgotten team, former married couple Yin and Gaz, were knocked out before the midway mark but now gained a sense of closure. Yin tearfully admitted how she'd struggled with her heritage while travelling through China. Since returning home, she had built bridges with her family and made peace with her past. Sixtysomething siblings Brian and Melvyn, who finished fourth, rebuilt their brotherly bond on the road.'Things got a bit emotional but a cold beer sorted it,' said the typically phlegmatic Melvyn. Having emerged as the race's cult hero, he stole the show again, declaring, 'Up the oldies!' Still the cheering updates kept coming. Teenage sweethearts Fin and Sioned, who claimed the bronze medal, had caught the travel bug and since been on a trip around Australia. The race runners-up, sisters Elizabeth and Letitia, were inspired to build their own homestay in Kenya. Victorious mother-and-son duo Caroline and Tom were similarly reborn. Caroline was newly carefree, while Tom's confidence had blossomed so much that he was now self-employed and excitedly planning his next adventure. Those who had become tired of the sob stories won't have been appeased by some of the navel-gazing. There was plentiful talk of 'personal growth' and 'moving forward'. Yet the show and its participants are so likeably wholesome, it was hard to be too cynical. Caroline and Tom might have clinched the £20,000 prize but money was barely mentioned. Indeed, the winnings are so incidental to the show's magical mix, it's easy to forget there's cash involved at all. When it comes to Race Across the World, it truly is the taking part that counts. We were treated to unseen clips – cue backpack-laden dashes down streets, like panicking turtles – and breathtaking scenery. Everyone paid tribute to helpful locals and praised the kindness of strangers. Behind-the-scenes footage revealed how embedded film crews captured their every move. It made for a fascinating insight into the vast logistical operation required to make the show. My main complaint was that the location for the reunion – a wood-panelled suite at London's L'Oscar hotel – bore a distracting resemblance to the Round Table showdowns from BBC stablemate The Traitors. I kept expecting a tweed-clad Claudia Winkleman to pop up and demand that somebody be banished. Please, anyone but Melvyn. The last word went to winner Tom. 'It's important to enjoy the journey, as well as the destination,' he concluded. This was a celebratory, albeit non-essential, way to sign off. Now how about applying for next year's race?
Telegraph
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Race Across the World, ep 7, review: it's time for the sob stories to take a back seat
Warning: contains spoilers Just when you thought Race Across the World (BBC One) was running on a pretty familiar road, they go and wrong-foot you. In the penultimate leg of the race, the tried and tested helter skelter to the checkpoint, the edit skipping back and forth between competing pairs as they attempted to decipher baffling directions, was thrown out the window. Because it looked like ultra-competitive brothers Brian and Melvyn, the canny old codgers of the field, were a shoo-in. But in a devious twist that I was kicking myself for not seeing coming, all was not as it seemed and the glossy sign-in hotel book had a different tale to tell – Caroline and Tom were victors of this penultimate leg. It was a clever trick to play because, however entertaining a reality format is, viewers need to be kept on their toes. The cheeky twist showed there's plenty of life left, global meltdowns and closed borders permitting, in this compelling if tricksily edited travel race. The stunning cinematography of far-flung exotic locales we take for granted by now – India, here I come – and there are only so many times we can witness flustered Brits shouting, 'How much?! What no bus for five days?!' at ticket office windows. So the twist got a thumbs up. As did the welcome return of a spot of hitch-hiking, a dying art in our paranoid times. Admittedly, it was only Caroline and Tom and Sioned and Fin who got a lift to the nearest bus station rather than attempting a daring traverse across the sub-continent, but it was good to see trust being placed in the kindness of strangers rather than suspecting danger lurking around every corner. By this point, I'm usually rooting for my favourites to win and wishing a travel itinerary débacle on the ones who've got up my nose, but this year it's a pretty even field. No real heroes, no dastardly villains, which makes a refreshing change in reality casting world. It's not all plain sailing. This former backpacker would appreciate seeing more of India and the interactions with hosting families and employers, which have largely taken a back seat this series, and rather less of the prerequisite backstories that are going round in circles. How many times do we have to be told that Laetitia is gaining in confidence or that travel has brought mildly estranged brothers Brian and Melvyn together? I'm pleased for them, I truly am, but over seven episodes, the constant leaning into the other journey the contestants are taking, exorcising the demons in their lives, is becoming as wearying as a 12-hour night bus trip. Just the idea of that makes my back sigh. When we did see the racers engage with the locals, such as Sioned and Fin tucking into a home-made biryani donated to them by a kindly Indian chap on a bus, you got the real feeling of what a buzz life can be on the road. For that alone, I'd like the young Welsh couple to take next week's prize. For this passenger, the sob stories can take a back seat.
