When the BBC first announced Celebrity Race Across the World – a celebrity version of one of my favourite shows – I was pretty unimpressed. “The best thing about the format is that you get to know the ordinary people who take part,” I wrote at the time. “If you throw in a bunch of celebrities, they’ll just spend their time showing off, focusing everything on themselves and spoiling the joy of the adventure.”
Thankfully, the BBC solved this problem for the first series by booking people who weren’t necessarily household names/divas and pairing them with friends or family members who were even less well-known. It was such a success that the BBC repeated the trick for the second series, which reached the halfway point this week.
I am happy to report that once again it worked wonderfully.
The celebrity version offers the same weekly dose of life-affirming escapism as the civilian version, and I’ve now added a tour of South America to my ever-growing travel wish list. It’s no surprise that this is the No. 1 show on TV at the moment.
However, I have noticed one big difference: the effect that the lack of prize money has on the celebrity participants. It definitely takes some of the drama and danger out of the proceedings.
Although the £20,000 up for grabs wasn’t the only reason people took part in the ‘normal’ version, they were no strangers to the big cash prize. As a result, the civilian show usually had a more competitive feel to it. In some cases, knowing what the duos planned to spend the money on when they returned to their everyday lives made me root for them even more.
For the celebrities, all that matters is taking part. However, since it is essentially a reality TV show, they have also cited other reasons as to why it means so much to them – aside from the obvious boost in exposure that comes with taking part in a show with 6 million viewers a week.
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For Jeff Brazier and his son Freddy, it was about reconnecting and reaffirming the parent-child bond. For newlyweds Kelly Brook and Jeremy Parisi, it was a chance to go on the honeymoon they couldn’t take in 2022. (I know – is that just showbiz talk or what?)
At the other end of the romance spectrum, brave/foolish soon-to-be-married couple Scott Mills and Sam Vaughan saw the vacation as the acid test that every couple apparently has to pass before saying “I do.” For Ted Lasso’s Kola Bokinni and his cousin Mary Ellen, the trip of a lifetime was too good an offer to turn down. (That’s fair. You can’t judge them too harshly for that.)
Watch a trailer for Celebrity Race Across the World
With transportation permitted during the first half of this South American trip, the teams certainly had plenty of time to develop their motivations. With Brazil’s rail network not exactly the greatest source of national pride, there have been a lot of uneventful bus journeys so far. Scott and Sam even endured a painful 25-hour butt-numbing journey on the final leg of their journey.
The production team probably had two options: either take Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves on the buses to lighten the mood a bit, or simply accept that they would have to record a lot of post-trip interviews in hotels or bus stations to fill in the gaps in the 60-minute shows. Which of the team’s stories you look at more closely is, of course, a matter of taste.
However, since I prefer the option that sounds most like a romantic comedy, I’ll be keeping an eye out for action between Kelly and Jeremy and Scott and Sam.
This is not to disparage or demean the other pairings. I found Freddy’s tributes to his mother Jade Goody as touching as his older brother Bobby’s on Strictly Come Dancing last year. The little flashes of Jade we see in Freddy are also particularly touching. It’s easy to imagine Jade turning up at a street market in Brazil and spontaneously calling out, “Shall we get a cauldron?”
Kelly and Jeremy, however, have been the ones who have gotten the most laughs on this show. Kelly, she has the happy ability to say exactly what’s on her mind in any situation. I find that particularly entertaining, although I can understand that other viewers might find it rather annoying.
In the final episode, as Jeremy scurried into a stunning cathedral to pray in silence, Kelly sat down next to him and decided it was the perfect moment to interrupt him and tell the camera crew how, in her younger days in Rochester, she had seriously considered becoming a nun. “I thought, oh God, what a beautiful life,” she said. “I could just wear a habit, make cheese and crochet all day. Then I became a Page 3 girl and everything went downhill.”
There were more laughs later in the episode when the newlyweds (unknowingly, we must assume) booked a motel with hourly rooms that looked like one of those sex bars you may have read about. To her credit, Kelly immediately – and quite correctly – turned off the stereo in the room when they were greeted in horror by Chris De Burgh’s Lady in Red as they walked through the door.
She did, however, seem quite taken with the room’s other romantic features, not least the full-length mirror opposite the bed. Jeremy was less impressed.
“Does that put you in the mood?” Kelly asked.
His answer? “Go to sleep.”
To be honest, he was completely worn out and still soaked from the sudden downpour that had ruined their romantic outdoor dinner. He also wants to win the race, while Kelly clearly has other goals in mind, like sightseeing and a nice shower. In a perfect world, Jeremy’s wish would come true. But I can’t imagine that happening.
That’s the other problem with the lack of prize money. When you have a team where both competitors are naturally competitive and extremely capable, the other pairs don’t really stand a chance. Traveling machines Jeff and Freddy were so far ahead after the second leg that they could afford to take a detour and see the sights of Rio de Janeiro. Despite this detour, they were still ahead at the end of the third leg.
If things continue like this, when it comes to the final checkpoint in Chile, they will probably have time to go back to Brazil and get Freddy’s boiler and still win by a few hours.
Celebrity Race Across the World airs on Wednesdays on BBC One and streams on BBC iPlayer.