Escapism, squabbling and soul-mining under the sun
Sometimes, the numbers say it best. Ten strangers, aged from 38 to 58, taking over La Banditaccia, a 250-acre farm in the hills of southern Tuscany. Contents: a 13-acre vineyard (producing 28,000-30,000 bottles of wine a year), five acres of olive trees, and one faded B&B. Managing an estate run for 20 years as an Italian family business, these Brits abroad had two months to make it work – and could stay on afterwards, if they so wished. And here was one television reviewer who thought he’d seen it all before.
Or so I thought. On the surface, the six-part Second Chance Summer:
Tuscany (BBC Two) is a conventional twist on a creaking formula – Big
Brother by way of The Real Marigold Hotel. The difference is that, unlike the vast majority of Big Brother contestants, these people are both old enough and mundane enough to have lived normal lives, experiencing love, loss and disappointment along the way. Most had recently lost parents or partners and all were carrying baggage far beyond their suitcases, and desperate for a change. “Everyone,” mused 38-year-old wine expert Rob, “is a broken toy.”
In this opening episode, there were inevitable moments of idiocy and conflict: two of the group sealed a deal for 20 chickens with a local farmer, only to somehow return with just 18; 50-year-old Tracy mused about branding their bucolic Italian B&B with a British room, a Chinese room and an African room; the early grape harvest exposed the shirkers and tyrants in short order.
Most of all, a startling number seemed to have made no effort to learn the language or research the facts of rural Tuscan life, while the passiveaggression that bubbled up during any group gatherings was at times deeply uncomfortable. Some, at this early stage in the experiment but relatively late stage in their lives, could probably do with learning the value of compromise, negotiation and elbow grease – especially with both the olive and grape harvests, and the grand reopening of the B&B, imminent.
In among the bickering Brits were scattered pearls of wisdom from the sun-ripened locals. “When it’s grape harvest time, the feelings that are in the air are of profound joy,” reckoned Father Gianni, presumably not having visited La Banditaccia. Vintner Carlos sagely opined that “this idea that getting older means getting wiser is a bit of a cliché, no?”, as exhibits A to J offered ample supporting evidence.
While such profundity was thin on the ground, the poignancy was unarguable; the longer this went on and the more the participants came into focus, the less of a long haul five further episodes began to look. The cameras, slurping at the landscapes like a glass of fine Tuscan Merlot while the sun beat down obligingly, provided plenty of escapism from the squabbling and soul-mining. Most refreshingly, none of it felt meanspirited: everyone had reasons for their behaviour, however deeply buried they may have been. I’ll certainly be giving it a second chance.
I’m not a dog owner, but even if I was, I think the trailers about a new series promising “to sniff out the country’s most pawsome partnership” would have had me thinking it was walkies time, were it not my professional obligation to watch. However, the reality of Me and My
Dog: the Ultimate Contest (BBC Two) was considerably more palatable, at least once my eyeballs had recovered from presenter and dog lover Chris Packham’s luminous yellow and green top.
Eight people and their dogs have been assembled in the Lake District to compete in physical and mental challenges designed to test the relationship between owners and pets. Week one focused on communication skills as the hopeful eight tried to coax their dogs through some pretty tricky challenges via verbal instructions, body language and then, remarkably, eye contact alone.
The mutual devotion was as evident as it was touching, while some of the slapstick was worthy of You’ve Been
Framed!. The science stuff was deftly handled and often genuinely enlightening: whether a dog favours wagging its tail to the left or right can indicate their dominant brain hemisphere and associated personality traits. Only the competitive element itself felt daft and borderline redundant, given how vocally everyone seemed to be rooting for everyone else. But it was hard to take against a show that was so determinedly low key, puppyishly eager to please – and probably cost about as much as my licence fee to put together.