The Cotswolds with Pam Ayres
CHANNEL 5, 8PM
Another week, another celebrity fronted jaunt around a scenic bit of the UK. But a hat-tip to the programmers at Channel 5: you could do a lot worse than have Pam Ayres going into bat for your part of the world. Their latest tourist board-adjacent series sends the beloved poet and presenter around her home turf of the Cotswolds to sing its praises for the next four Fridays. The cameras showcase the area impeccably while Ayres, now more frequently seen as a guest on the likes of The One Show or QI, clearly enjoys her return to centre-stage, charming everyone from the Queen’s perfumer (who helps her rustle up her very own “Pam’s Pong”) to selfstyled “rock gentleman” Alex James, the Blur bassist plugging his cheese and taking her on a tour of his farm.
While her trip around Blenheim Palace turns up little new information about the history of this oft-seen stately home, the gardens and forests prove fertile for the committed apiarist, who goes looking for British black bees. Her encounter with young birder Mya-rose Craig is also quietly inspiring, and a Hook Norton ale the perfect aperitif for an Ayres ode to round off a characteristic hour of wry television. Gabriel Tate