For The Love Of Britain, ITV

★★★★

With this year having been all but a write-off, we need something to look forward to in 2021. And by that I mean a holiday.

Will we feel confident enough to fly by next summer, though? And will Brexit be such a disaster that the thought of travelling abroad will have millions of us running for the hills?

Fortunately, we have plenty of hills. Even more fortunately, ITV decided last night was the perfect time to repackage some old celebrity travelogues in a, cough, “New” 10-part series celebrating “the majestic isle we call home”.

You could call the ITV schedulers a bunch of cheapskates for simply recycling a load of old programmes.

It worked a treat, though. Plus, they did splash out on a fantastic narrator in Julie Walters. (I just hope the likes of Robson Green and Julia Bradbury will have some tidy repeat fees in their Christmas boxes.)

The only complaint I had was that on the eve of the Covid tier system coming into play, ITV took us to two of the three areas that are lucky enough to be in Tier 1 – Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Talk about rubbing it in!

We were given a further reminder of our current predicament when a marine expert on Lundy Island gave Liz Bonnin this warning about grey seals: “Don’t touch them. Don’t try to give them a hug.”

Yeah, yeah – we know. Don’t share cutlery with them, don’t sing carols, don’t use the same gravy boat…

They did splash out on a fantastic narrator in Julie Walters