Eamonn camps it up in a Bedouin tent. No wonder Ruth’s in a strop
THE EASY life suits Eamonn Holmes. When he had to be on duty at dawn with the news on Sky every day, his face had a haggard, pouchy look.
But he was rejuvenated on Eamonn & Ruth Do Dubai (C5). Gone were the dark hammocks under his eyes. His unlined skin was plump and scrubbed, with bouncing dimples like a cartoon baby.
He’s getting camper, too. When we saw him board a plane to fly first class to the United Arab Emirates, he had a mincing spring in his step that was pure John Barrowman. At any moment I expected him to burst into a medley from Oklahoma.
Eamonn when morose and shorttempered is hard work. Eamonn in a state of joyous mischief must be exhausting. That’s just a guess, though. His documentaries with wife Ruth usually include enough unscripted moments to give us a clue to how exasperated she seems, but this time the banter was heavily rehearsed.
They went camel-riding over the dunes, and dined in a Bedouin tent, before window-shopping for millionaire tat such as a box of gold-plated business cards that cost £150,000 per hundred.
After a pretend row, wifey sulked and hubbie plied her with embalmed roses which, the salesman said, would never droop. It was all as unconvincing as the rubbery glow on Eamonn’s forehead.
The tour guides’ patter wasn’t believable either. Ask anyone in Dubai about their most famous clients and I’m sure all of them, from the cabbie to the maitre d’, would cite Kylie Minogue, Will Smith and David Beckham.
One fixer who runs a concierge travel service, whisking celebs around by helicopter, added an extra name: former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He visits Dubai to go ‘sandboarding’, apparently.
Eamonn asked casually if Hillary Clinton visited, too, and the man blanched. ‘ No,’ he stuttered, breaking into a muck sweat, ‘she has never been here.’ It was the same look that characters get in Harry Potter movies when Voldemort is mentioned.
When Ruth and Eamonn are on form, they seize on such revealing moments and use them to prise away the facade. With its Lamborghini police cars and diamond- studded skyscrapers, Dubai is achingly fake: it would have been far more interesting if we could have glimpsed behind the illusion.
Elsewhere, the odd little documentary Bus Wars (BBC1) left the clear impression that Belfast will never get carried away by Dubai-style bling.
‘I call myself an entrepreneur,’ said coach- tour boss Ben, happily dripping ice cream down his fleece as he waited in the wan sunshine for a party of tourists to board his bus.
Across the road, staff at rival firm McComb’s were watching to ensure Ben didn’t poach their customers. Mrs McComb was convinced her tours were far superior anyway: indicating the on-board WC and mini-fridge stocked with bottled water, she boasted: ‘I think this is as close to five-star as it gets.’
We met the ticket-sellers, some of them with Belfast accents so rich that even the subtitles needed subtitles. They all said they loved their jobs, which is what people tend to tell the cameras when they are desperate to keep in employment regardless of how mundane it is.
There was a sharp edginess between some of the touts, though we never saw all- out hostility, just phoney ‘bus wars’.
In the end, the programme didn’t add up to much more than an open-top bus tour — it left you wondering why you had bothered.