‘I am doing more and seeing more than I ever thought I would’
Susan Calman talks to Gemma Dunn about her new Channel 5 show, Cruising with Calman
If you’d told Susan Calman she would soon be whizzing around the Canaries on a jet ski, she’d have simply laughed.
Yet the watersport lists as one of many adventures the Scottish comedian undertook for her latest six-part series, Cruising with Susan Calman.
“That was a revelation to me because if you’d said, “Do you want to go on a jet ski?” I would have said, “No, that sounds horrific” but I loved it!” she admits, ahead of the show’s Channel 5 debut.
“I am 47 years old, and my world has suddenly opened up in a way that I didn’t expect! At this age you expect you’ll do a few things, but I am doing more stuff and seeing more places than I ever thought I would, and I am really loving that I am still being challenged to do new things!
Feeling shaken and a little stirred (“I think everyone was quite frightened by how much I loved going really fast”), the Glaswegian presenter reflects on her continued voyage of the Canary Islands; a destination she reached after setting sail on the Regal Princess.
Landside, she meets some of Gran Canaria’s worldfamous drag queens in Maspalomas; explores the volcanic landscape of Mount Teide on the back of a boom trike in Tenerife (“I had a spiritual experience on that, genuinely”); and embarks on an underwater sea trek in Lanzarote.
Back on board, she takes the opportunity to relax in the ship’s onboard spa, joins fellow guests in a trivia quiz, and finds herself amid a sunshine cruise on the top deck, where she gets the party started with some cocktail flaring.
And that’s just the first leg of her trip on the high seas. Following on from the Canaries, Calman will head to Madeira and the Spanish port of Vigo, before moving on to Barcelona and the Mediterranean, boarding one of the biggest ships in the world to travel to the island of Mallorca and then Italy.
For her final cruise, she travels further afield, sailing from Florida to discover the Caribbean and on to the wonder of the Panama Canal and Costa Rica.
She shares one of her favourite moments aboard the Harmony of the Seas – part of the Royal Caribbean fleet – which sails from Barcelona.
“The captain let us dance on the helipad…” begins the former Strictly contestant, “but he had to slow it down and some of the passengers were asking ‘Why has the ship slowed down, is there a problem?’ only to be told ‘It’s Susan dancing at the front of the ship!’
“The fact that we managed to slow down one of the biggest ships in the world so we could dance on the helipad – there’s not many people who can say that!”
The whole experience has been life-changing, Calman realises: “I genuinely think my world has opened up in the last two or three years. I bought myself a globe so I can look at where I am going and where I have been. Because before this, it was a very small list.i can see myself going places that I never thought I would and that’s an incredible thing.”
● Cruising with Susan Calman returns to Channel 5 on Friday, 9pm