Radio Times: Review by:; Jane Rackham

“I’ve wanted to do this since 1962,” says Paul Merton, although he’s not referring to this week’s theme — caravanning. What he gets alarmingly emotional about is his lifelong ambition to clown around in the circus ring. He’s really not keen on caravans, especially parking them.

“This could be an eight-part series called Paul Merton Tries to Reverse a Caravan,” he sighs. So he forgets caravans to concentrate on this country’s more eccentric pastimes, namely egg-throwing with a team of Oompa-Loompa look-alikes in Lincolnshire and pagan morris dancing featuring a human sacrifice (guess who that is) in Cornwall.

About this programme

4/6. The comedian stays close to home this week, hitching up a caravan for a good old-fashioned British touring holiday. Heading south from Hull in East Yorkshire, the capital of the caravan-construction industry, he visits Lincolnshire, the Cotswolds, Weston-super-Mare, the Malvern Hills and Cornwall, taking in such delights as a traditional Punch and Judy show, the Big Chill Festival, a circus with a difference and an egg-throwing tournament.