Has there been a less interesting hour of television in recent years. Not even Richard Ayoade could raise this yawn fest above the threshold of paint drying.
David O’Doherty says in the introduction that after lockdown he promised himself that he’d go cycling to beautiful places “with people I’d always wanted to go cycling with”. Those people being Richard Ayoade, Mel Giedroyc, Joe Wilkinson and Grayson Perry. Really? All very talented people in their own right but “people I’d always wanted to go cycling with”. Okay if you say so David.
The four part series started with the ‘Travel Man’ himself Richard Ayoade. The two days of conversations between the cycling companions was as uninteresting as the scenery through which they cycled. Even the drone footage failed to inspire. As Time Out puts it ‘It’s impossible to escape the sense of having reached the end of the world when you get to Dungeness.‘
Despite being on cycles, Ayoade’s would have been more at home on the King’s Road, Chelsea, the banter was extremely pedestrian. O’Doherty giggled like a schoolboy at almost everything Ayoade uttered and struggled to say anything that was vaguely amusing, himself: even going down a comic cul-de-sac when discussing his distaste for cooked fruit.
Cars that approached them from the rear apparently drove through some sort of Stargate, disappearing from sight. The most exciting occurrence was a near miss when being overtaken by a speedy tractor.
Maybe if future guests pedal faster the show might pick up pace but on this showing, viewers will be disinterested in going along for the ride.