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If you’re someone who believes the celebrity travelogue genre has been pushed too far, Martin & Roman’s Irish Road Trip (Monday, 8pm, Channel 4) is here to push you to the edge. Then continue pushing until you’re falling off a cliff into the Irish Sea.
It is unclear why exactly the producers chose Martin Kemp and his son, Roman, to take viewers on a tour of Ireland. Which to be fair, the two men address in the first three minutes. Martin lived in the country briefly in the 80s during his Spandau Ballet era, we’re told. His mum “always said” she was half Irish but – as Roman points out – the family did an ancestral DNA test and they’re actually Germanic.
Still, they’re keen for a rare chance to spend time together away without the rest of the family. “We’ve never done it before!” Martin says with excitement. “For good reason,” Roman replies.
The series is essentially the television equivalent of English people applying for an Irish passport post-Brexit to avoid the large queues at the airport. Did your great-grandmother twice removed once sleep with a man named Seamus? Who cares, I just want to go on my holidays!
Accept that premise and you’re in for a perfectly reasonable time. Part father-and-son buddy movie, part exploration of Irish folklore and landscapes, Irish Road Trip is a love letter to both people and place, albeit one that doesn’t quite know what tone to land on.
There’s humour, most successfully when Roman – clearly thoughtful and witty – finds opportunities to poke fun at his dad. When they explore keening – the traditional Irish vocal lament for the dead – and Martin does a double take on the word, Roman quips he should know all about “cleaners” as he has about 12 back home to look after his mansion. The jaunty Irish folk music that pops up every 10 minutes reassures the viewer we’re all here to have a lovely time.
And yet a fair portion of the content is melancholic. At one point, Roman touchingly admits he’s thinking about his own mortality – and the future death of his parents – more as he gets older, to the extent it sometimes keeps him awake at night.
Other sections are outright distressing, especially the tour around Spike Island in Cork Harbour – known as “Ireland’s Alcatraz” for its on/off use as a prison for 1,300 years. A tour guide shows the Kemps the seventh-century version of solitary confinement: an isolation room used for punishment where prisoners, including children, were chained to the wall by their neck for weeks. It doesn’t help when the tour guide declares that she sometimes sees a ghost. On the ferry ride back, Roman tells Martin that’s the first time he’s ever been somewhere without hope.
But don’t worry, the upbeat fiddle has started playing! No wait, Roman is talking about death again. Does his dad believe that you can see your family from above when you die? He hopes not because he’d just be seeing Roman taking the keys to his car.
On paper, I’m the target audience for the series. I’m English-Irish: my grandfather was a jockey in the Grand National; I inherited a Waterford crystal whiskey glass from my Nan; I’ve never set foot farther west than Birmingham. But two Englishmen learning about Irish folklore is a hard thing to sell, even when they are so earnestly engaged with the locals and experts they meet along the way.
The best moments come when the father-and-son relationship is at the forefront. The tour around the ancient tomb in the second episode is visually striking but my favourite part comes before they even enter. When they’re told that a local has a key to get in the tomb (yes, really), Roman encourages his dad to go to her house to ask for it. “He doesn’t like meeting new people,” Roman says to the camera as he proudly watches Martin knock at the front door.
That, I suppose, is why celebrity travelogues keep getting commissioned: they are a chance for viewers to get up close and personal with both another country and family.
What’s next for the Kemps? A German road trip? I’ve heard they’ve got suitable DNA.
English (US) ·