Son shines for Bradley

TONIGHT we have the last in the current run of BRADLEY & BARNEY WALSH: BREAKING DAD (ITV, 8pm). I say “current”, but I’m struggling to see how they could stretch the idea a lot further.

I take it you’ve watched it? The premise is ingeniously simple. BradleyWalsh has been on a road trip with his twentysomething lad Barney. Bradley was simply looking forward to some fatherand-son bonding time. Barney wanted adventure.

Specifically, young Barney believed his 60-year-old father needed pushing out of his comfort zone, and so he’s been making it his mission – one suspects with a little assistance from the production team – to find endless ways for this to take place, arranging for them to stop off at regular intervals to undertake daredevil stunts, crackpot challenges and suchlike.

Bradley’s role, whenever he’s been told there’s yet another of these coming up (tonight’s, in Italy, include gladiatorial combat, some zipwire nonsense and chucking themselves off a cliff) has been to act shocked, despite the fact this has been going on for three whole series and you’d think he’d have detected something of a pattern by now.

Then he has to say something along the lines of: “Yerravvinalarf aintcha?! You trying to get me killed, son?” This is before eventually agreeing to give the stunt a go, having realised they won’t have much of a programme otherwise. I mean, it’s fine, honestly. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bradley Walsh, and his son seems a lovely kid, despite the hair, and throwaway telly is fine by me. I just think this particular example has run its course.

If Bradley and Barney must continue with their on-screen partnership, how about next time they turn the tables?

We’ve established now that comfort zones like Bradley’s exist for a good reason, that a fear of heights or of excess speed etc. is merely your common sense tapping you on the shoulder and going: “Er, you do realise that heights and excess speed are there to kill you?”

So now let’s see Bradley teaching his boy a thing or two, by insisting that a sensible grown-up comfort zone be their next destination.

If Barney thinks bungee jumps and abseiling are exhilarating, just wait till he gets stuck into a decent jigsaw.

Earlier tonight, satellite channel Gold has back-to-back episodes of seventies sitcom THE GOOD LIFE, at 6.10pm, and 6.50pm. I mention this purely because, if you switch to BBC Two straight afterwards, it’s one of tonight’s specialist subjects on MASTERMIND (7.30pm).

Shouting-out-the-answers-wise, I thought you might appreciate the small tip-off.