Marigold magic
Guys in sun are shady
THE trial of Ian Stewart, of who was found guilty murdering his millionaire Bailey, author fiancée Helen And Channel gripped the nation. in covering the 5 wasted no time tingling case with a spine- really documentary which you showed how careful need to be in choosing your life partner. ALL Aboard The Twilight Express To India
There’s never been a greater advert for older age than the BBC’s hit reality series The Real Marigold Hotel – now in its second year and capturing just under five million viewers a show.
The nation has become hooked on watching eight of our best-known senior celebrities exploring a life in India, known for its great care for the elderly and value for money for Westerners, to see if any of them would choose to retire there.
The willingness of this season’s cast including Lionel Blair, Amanda Barrie, Dennis Taylor, Sheila Ferguson and Bill Oddie to share their fears for their final acts is heartwarming viewing.
Forget Love Island Towie or Ex On The Beach, full of unknowns, plastic reality “stars, performing on camera”. This is real life on TV.
Our plucky British pensioners throw themselves into every adventurous outing with a zest that proves they are nowhere near ready to be written off yet. Five minutes into episode two and Three Degrees singer Sheila, 69, was looking for liquid valium, 88-year-old dance legend Lionel was undergoing a four-handed belly rub to try and get his 31-inch heyday waist back, and 75- year- old Bill was testing natural Viagra. And that was just for starters. No topic was off limits as our stars shared all about their life journeys, blessings and failings as they contemplated if India was the place to be when the end was finally nigh.
They visited a temple of love supposedly blessed with fertility powers, made friends with the locals and travelled on trains with strangers like teenage backpackers having the time of their lives.
When Lionel was playing football with the village elders and was told that being 88 was considered young there, the smile across his face was priceless.
Carry On Legend Amanda celebrated her 81st Birthday with a wild party and confessed she wished no one had ever told her how old she was because she feels ageless. She looks it too.
Meanwhile usually guarded Bill Oddie touchingly let us into his bipolar depression, a truly real moment in this so-called genre of reality TV.
In every Marigold episode we learn something deeply personal and never in a contrived way.
Around the dinner table, Lionel revealed that despite joking that his tummy was the result of nibbling biscuits the true cause of the swelling was a side effect of surviving cancer he’d previously battled.
Dennis Taylor recalled his mum dying suddenly at 62. It taught him that he would never know when his number was up so he lived every day like it was his last.
And as the party wound down, a happily tired Amanda declared to her housemates: “It’s like winning the lottery coming here and being with you lot.”
We all knew she really meant it. ON Channel 5’s Bargain Loving Brits In The Sun we saw more of Benidorm’s expats scoffing all-day breakfasts, swigging cheap beer and “living like kings on five euros a day”. This week the