Keep calm and carry on
COULD we be heading for a happy ending in JOHNNY VEGAS: CARRY ON GLAMPING (C4, 10pm)? Possibly. But don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves just yet.
“With friends and family arriving for the official launch tomorrow,” the voiceover warns us, “there’s still time for things to go wrong...”
Johnny, remember, has devoted two years to this eccentric project of his, to open his own glamping site in the Yorkshire countryside, using renovated vintage buses and suchlike as the accommodation.
But eccentric projects are bound to encounter snags (they wouldn’t be terribly eccentric if they didn’t, would they?), and for Johnny and assistant Bev it’s been a little, er, stressful at times.
Anyway, we kick things off tonight on an upbeat note as Johnny is reunited with the old German fire truck and trailer (I did say buses and “suchlike”, remember) that he had had painstakingly restored. As with all the loveliest moments in this series, this 50-year-old man is so thrilled, he’s like a child in a sweet shop (or like me let loose in Lakeland).
He loves the idea of a young family coming to stay in this thing, the parents kipping in the truck while the children get the spruced-up trailer to themselves.
“For kids, that’ll be the holiday you’ll never forget,” he gratefully tells restorer Paul. “That is memories in the making.”
And then comes the big moment. The arrival of Patricia, his beloved Maltese bus from the 1950s, drunkenly bought online at the start of this mad mission. Named after his late mum, Patricia has had to be almost entirely rebuilt. But it’s been worth it.
When Johnny and Bev spot her on the horizon, being slowly driven down to his site on the back of a low-loader for safety’s sake, they struggle to hold back the tears.
“No one believed it would get to this stage,” Johnny cries. “Nobody.” But Johnny being Johnny, he’s still taking nothing for granted.
“You know I catastrophise?” he reminds Bev, with his treasured bus now almost within touching distance. “I’ve just got this idea of it coming down the hill and falling off the side...”
Earlier, also on Channel 4, Lesley Sharp plays a cop (yes, it’s Scott without Bailey) in the new six-part thriller BEFORE WE DIE (9pm). Here she’s DI Hannah Laing, alarmed by the disappearance of her married lover and fellow officer Sean (BillWard).
Also starring Vincent Regan and Patrick Gibson, Before We Die is based on a hit Swedish drama called Innan Vi Dör.
Google Translate is telling me that “Innan Vi Dör” is Swedish for “Before We Die”. I’ve obviously caught it on a good day.