Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Rosie gives it some stick
Channel 4, 8.30pm
CULTURE isn’t so much served up as rammed down your throat in this funny antidote to the usual travelogue.
Instead of discussing grape varieties with a vineyard owner, comedian Rosie Jones just gets drunk. And instead of having a grown-up conversation with a vicar in Norwich Cathedral, Jamali Maddix tells the vicar he needs to “put some real hours into praying” if he wants Norwich City football club to ever get back into the Premier League.
Yes, Rosie and her comedian mate Jamali are in Norwich, leaving fictional Channel 4 commissioner Saskia (Rachel Stubbings) horrified.
“We’ve already got Devon And Cornwall, Pottery Throwdown and The Circle, we’ve got boring covered,” she moans. Nonetheless, here they are, in a city that boasts 31 churches. It used to have 57, but according to narrator Olivia Colman, “thankfully now plenty of those are vape shops”.
First they meet a bunch of local men who are dressed as women with fake boobs and broomsticks, which they claim is all about keeping the 18th-century tradition of molly dancing alive.
“They were nice guys but I hope this isn’t setting the tone for the rest of the trip,” says an always dour
Jamali, clearly preparing himself for disappointment.
He tries to enjoy a wine-tasting event (he doesn’t like wine), before the pair sober up to attend a blacksmithing course, heating and hammering metal under the guidance of a local artisan.
Finally, it’s fisticuffs as the pair find themselves in the ring at the renowned World Association of Wrestling, where Rosie takes on a scary pair of tough girls.