IAN HYLAND
On last night’s telly
Gordon, Gino & Fred: Christmas Road Trip Three Unwise Men ★★★★★
These guys were always going to struggle to recreate the biblical journey of the Three Wise Men. In that story there was only one ass, but this version had three.
Gordon Ramsay, Gino D’Acampo and Fred Sirieix each wore Jeremy
Clarkson jeans and candidates for worst Christmas jumpers ever.
The other problem was Gino’s “cousin” had apparently bungled their flights, so they ended up in Morocco instead of the Holy Land.
Yeah, right. The more likely explanation was ITV realised it was easier to do a desert trek in Morocco.
Not that the location was a huge deal. As Gino pointed out: “It doesn’t matter where you are. If you’re with the right people you’re going to have a hell of a time.”
He was certainly with the right people in Gordon and Fred.
Top Gear’s bosses must hate this show. After Clarkson’s departure, they have spent years trying to get the chemistry of that show sorted out.
Then ITV chanced on this trio by accident.
There’s already another road trip, this time in America, in the pipeline. And based on the evidence of this one-off festive special, this is a format which could run and run.
The humour may not be subtle, but the bond between the three is obvious. The cooking segments are pretty tasty fare too.
The only possible issue I can see is that some record company executive may have spotted them singing Christmas songs in last night’s show and is drawing up a recording contract for the trio right this minute.
Now that’s something I would call unwise.
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The humour isn’t subtle, but the bond between this trio is obvious