DEBORAH’S MUST-WATCH TV CLASSICS

Judi Dench’s Wild Borneo Adventure (2019)

ITVX

Dame Judi Dench was dispatched to Borneo for Judi Dench’s Wild Borneo Adventure - the clue was in the title - but as she is so universally loved they could have sent her anywhere and we’d follow. Even Judi Dench’s Tame Bournemouth Adventure would have worked.

So Judi, right, went to visit the oldest tropical rainforest on the planet, along with her ‘chap’, the conservationist David Mills.

I was minded to say that any trip with Dame Judi could only be improved if she were accompanied by puppies and kittens, but Mills seems adorable, so he will do.

Borneo is a remote spot where temperatures reach 42 degrees and humidity is 90 per cent, while Dame Judi is 84 with failing eyesight. I would not wish to have been in charge of the preparations. But it was worth it, if only to see her childlike wonder in play. Wonderful, she gasped. Ravishing, she gasped.

This could have proved annoying but she was so plainly overjoyed to have been given this opportunity.

It wasn’t the best celebrity travelogue of all time, but it was one of the most infectious.

She treated every animal or tree as if it were the most amazing gift. There was the orangutan up the tree, and the cicada as big as your fist but also Bob the dung beetle, of whom she said: ‘I like him very much.’ Judi, it’s a dung beetle! But her enthusiasm did not discriminate. And not much was asked of us except to bathe in the wonder of nature too. It was a joyful hour and I’ve been Googling ‘trips to Borneo’ ever since. Infectious, like I said.