Write Around the World with Richard E Grant

Beautiful, informative, deep and indulgent - the Andalusia episode had me in tears - feels like I'm having a holiday affair as I pause the tv when anyone walks in... Leave me alone please I'm having special tv time ! Mr Grants delivery is typically gorgeous - he reads and smiles and twinkles your cares away...💜 Loved the pace and deferential tone of the readings - its travel with meaning and who doesn't love that from the comfort of home? Totally loved this series (can you tell?? 😆) More please...! Thats enough gushing - I'm northern and like to get to the point ... I haven't used enough words so blah blah Richard e Grant is a marvellous human being etc.

The answer to that question is maybe, but it needs to be something at least a little different. This isn't.

What, exactly, does this actor add to the program? He briefly talks about Charles Dickens's book about Italy in which he excoriates the Catholic church, then he turns around and gives a voice to some local historian who talks about the miracle of San Genaro who somehow protects the city from the volcano. The historian segues into talking about how people use the numbers from the miracle to "get rich in the lotto."

The actor doesn't see the horrible irony of relating religion with the lotto which are one in the same. Asking someone to pray is the same as asking them to blow on your dice so you can roll a seven. Then Grant goes on to speak of the lottery as a positive force when it's nothing more than a tax on the poor.

Then he lost me completely as he reads aloud from Eat, Pray, Love while in a restaurant mentioned in that hack memoir.

There is little insight of the places visited.

Richard E. Grant is tremendous fun to watch and I'd happily see hours of him shovelling food into his mouth, trying to coax a reluctant donkey, sampling perfumes and yes, stripping off and diving into the sea. Those parts and the plush scenery and earnest readings of acclaimed works as he wanders the world (or rather, three regions across Europe) make it an easy recommendation. What makes it harder to love are the smattering of somewhat promo-like interviews with irritating author expats living in tumble-down farmhouses and writing naff books about their experiences. Even the glorious Grant can't lift these often weirdly protracted encounters from being quite severely grating. As a show it's a pleasant holiday, but I wouldn't live there.

This is not just your average travel show. Richard E Grant could make reading the telephone book seem interesting. He's incredibly enthusiastic. The literature links are also fascinating. He's great with people and you can tell he genuinely loves the books and what he's doing. I am tired of numerous travel shows but this is one of the best of the bunch. Too many focus on trying to find something quirky and are more interested in entertaining themselves than the public.

I found this show different and rewarding.

Write Around The World

It was an incredible and focussed series that combined specific places with literary imagination, such a simple idea brought to life in the most visceral way. As Richard concludes his exploration of place become "3D" as he sees, smells and delights in the same sensual expressions of an array of different authors. Must in the same way we daffodils after having read Wordsworth's poem.

His acute intellect, his grasp of each book and his examination of the emotional context of the written word was revelatory.

This show was both Richard and the BBC at its best, please can further series be made as this was TV gold, and advertise it widely as I only came upon this gem by chance.

It is a 10 out of 10 from me. I can find no fault whatsoever..