Michele Hewitson: Have smile, will travel

COMMENT

I suppose that what you hope to get out of watching other people travel from the comfort of your couch must rather depend on what you hope to get out of travelling. Given that my favourite travel book is an anthology called The World's Worst Travel Stories (which I read, gleefully, on a ghastly trip through Turkey), Getaway (Prime, tonight, 7.30pm), probably isn't aimed at people like me. There's nothing wrong with the show, as long as you regard it as basically an advert for holidays offered through United Travel.

It is like being trapped inside an animated form of travel brochure in which pretty people frolic on the beaches or the slopes or on perfect turquoise waters.

There's nothing wrong with the presenters on Getaway, either. They are all perky and pretty and the sort of people you are likely to meet around the pool at a resort (except that, in my experience, the sort of people you meet at a resort are perky, fat and drunk.) Nobody gets drunk, or sunburned, and nobody is fat on Getaway. It might be more exciting if they did get pissed occasionally. But these are working people. You have to feel sorry for them. Bummer gig, having to be serious, but fun too, while all around you people are presumably on holiday, getting fatter and drunker around the pool.

Everyone on Getaway goes by their first names, like the jolly folk who work at resorts.

Charlotte is Charlotte Dawson. Who is, of course, our very own perky, pretty girl. I must say she seems to get the bum jobs: golf courses and boring old mountains in New Zealand. She's quite good at being self-deprecatory when the script allows, our Charlotte. She said about the Grand Chateau "although she's had a few nips and tucks ... " the hotel has managed to "retain most of her charm and elegance."

Just like Charlotte, who has become our grand celebrity and has never been shy about owning up to a few nips and tucks and fake bulges of her own.

More of this would be better. But Getaway is pretty formulaic because the presenters have to tell us stuff straight out of the brochure - like the fact that at the Chateau the rooms are "spacious and comfortable" ... plus you find "all of the conveniences you'd expect." Like a dunny.

Yes, well, I would rather expect.

Charlotte had a suite. As she would. Now, I have stayed at the Chateau and had a room which was neither spacious nor particularly comfortable and came with an inconvenience you might not expect: gurgling noise all night long from the plumbing - probably from Charlotte's suite.

But you don't watch Getaway or any other travel programme to be told anything other than that things are jolly nice and lovely and that everyone met along the way is jolly nice and lovely. At least Getaway makes no pretence about such things. Unlike that one where so-called celebs get to go to places which are not supposed to be comfortable and spacious and lovely. And still all the people are ... etc.

I'd quite like to hear somebody say "what ghastly people these are. They live in a cave and eat muck, have terrible table manners and pooh, what a pong in the lav, haven't they heard of air fresheners?"

This would be rude but at least it wouldn't be condescending.