{"id":634927,"date":"2026-08-13T11:56:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/634927\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T11:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:56:22","slug":"martin-and-roman-kemp-explore-what-ireland-does-best-sarcasm-breakfast-wondering-whats-in-the-will-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/634927\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin and Roman Kemp explore what Ireland does best: Sarcasm, breakfast, wondering what\u2019s in the will \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello comrades. I\u2019m pleased to see that another English celebrity has fallen into our devious tourist trap. Martin Kemp<\/a>, formerly a purveyor of new romantic bass grooves with sexy troll dolls Spandau Ballet, is driving the smallest roads of Ireland, apparently under the impression we are a nation of storytelling mystics and not a nation of overeducated narcs in hoc to the Yankee dollar. Don\u2019t tell him about the motorways. It would ruin the vibe and shorten the episode. <\/p>\n

Martin is the husband of Pepsi and\/or Shirlie of the paramilitary organisation Pepsi and Shirlie. In an attempt to recreate the perfect person, this regal pop duo have bred \u201cRoman\u201d, their imperial, hunky offspring. He is, like so many nepo-hunks who came before, born to rule and, also, born to host light entertainment television. <\/p>\n

Hence, he is now co-hosting Martin and Roman\u2019s Irish Road Trip (Channel 4<\/a>) with his chortling Cockney progenitor at his side, a silvery haired Pearly King of a man. While the Romans never made it to Ireland, the Roman (singular) is now here, but instead of bringing aqueducts and literacy he has brought us halfhearted comic bickering with his dear old dad. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a chance to slow down and explore some of the things Ireland does best,\u201d says Martin Kemp and I slap my hands together in anticipation because I love the things Ireland does best: sarcasm; offshoring multinational profits; lilting; getting international celebrities to use local brands and then turning that into a meme; begrudgery; saying \u201cwhat\u2019s that eejit on about now?\u201d when Bono<\/a> is on telly; wanting Scandinavian public services but American taxes; shame; high rates of asthma; sneering; drinking Buckfast in a neighbour\u2019s hedge while moaning; taking our shirts off when the weather is merely mild; sunburn; heavy metal; simmering rage masquerading as humour; wondering vaguely what\u2019s in the will; singing softly to ourselves on the bus; breakfast.<\/p>\n

Sadly, this programme deals with none of those things. The dynastic duo start off their journey at \u201cthe boundary between life and death\u201d \u2013 by which they mean Cork, obviously. Some locals take them out in boats, not to dispose of their bodies (that\u2019s what instantly came to mind; \u201cclassic Cork,\u201d I said) but to show them the aquatic realm of Cl\u00edodhna, <\/b>the ancient goddess and, also, your ex. This is the repeated template of the show because Martin\u2019s interest is in myth and story. So Martin and Roman go to one beautiful ancient place after another where an eloquent and well-informed tour-guide\/academic\/folklorist tells them a spooky tale. <\/p>\n

We Gaels are, after all, a spiritual and superstitious lot. Ignore the pharmaceutical conglomerate\/social media company\/technical university that\u2019s no doubt just out of shot. Kemp and son go to Drombeg Stone Circle and Spike Island and they visit a storytelling group in Cork and a herbalist who puts a poultice on their wounds. They do not stop at a Circle K. They do not filter their profits through a PO box down on the docks. They do not buy an investment property off the plans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often good fun. Though it sometimes feels like the programme makers are going easy on the nerves of the British public, who have lost confidence recently thanks to being drunk on power for most of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. They don\u2019t want to overburden them with knowledge. When the Irish Famine comes up, for example, it\u2019s presented as something that happened for \u201creasons\u201d. Nobody was particularly to blame for it. This is a lovely, fatalistic way to view both history and everything I do from now on. I imagine the producers looked at the state of the British public, on the cusp of protest voting for more lunacy at the smallest perceived slight, and made a call: \u201cLet\u2019s not get into the ins and outs of who was murdering who.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fair enough. At some point in the past decade making fun of Britain has begun to feel a little like punching down. Let them have their elevated self-image and soothing myths. The real problem with the programme is format overexposure. I tire of watching celebrities drive hire cars while experiencing mild wonder and gentle, sneeze-like epiphanies. There is clearly a law that says if a celebrity asks to do something they should be allowed do it. For the most part, they have used this power to host the sort of travel documentaries that were once hosted by Alan Whicker. But mark my words, in time they will surely also ask to fly the plane you\u2019re travelling on or insist on operating on your inflamed appendix (as the anaesthesia takes hold, you have time for one murmured question: \u201cWhy are Rod Hull and Emu here?\u201d*)<\/p>\n

(*I would watch this show) <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Patrick Freyne: Cagney, Lacey, Velma, Daphne \u2013 here are my favourite female TV detectivesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Seventy per cent of greenhouse emissions are caused by celebrities making travel documentaries. That\u2019s the sort of statistic I would read aloud if I was a celebrity hosting a travel documentary. The celebrity-fronted format sometimes works but that\u2019s just because there are so many of them. Daniel and Majella\u2019s B&B Road Trip was the best thing that Irish civilisation has created since The T\u00e1in. I think of it often. And then there\u2019s Michael Palin, who simply stopped being a comedian after doing a bit of wandering and became a skilled travel documentarian instead. <\/p>\n

Martin and Roman Kemp, in contrast, sometimes struggle to talk each other, never mind to an audience of possibly hundreds of people. This is not to say that I wouldn\u2019t helm a travel show myself if given the chance, but my suggestion for it would be that I trail all the celebrities who are making travel documentaries and make a documentary about that. <\/p>\n

\"RickyRicky Gervais with Gus, the cartoon cat he voices in Alley Cats. Photograph: Netflix <\/p>\n

Alley Cats, the new adult animated show on Netflix, answers a question philosophers have asked for millenniums: \u201cWhat if Ricky Gervais was a cat?\u201d It\u2019s a programme about a cat who lives in a derelict house with some other cats. The main cat has Ricky Gervais\u2019s voice. He is, it seems, a cynical cat at a crossroads. The show veers from scatological jokes to mawkish musings about the mistreatment of animals and the inevitability of death. The amount of empathy Gervais can muster up for marginalised cartoon cats truly is remarkable really, given how hilarious he often finds the suffering of marginalised humans. Look, that\u2019s his prerogative. <\/p>\n

Alley Cats also defiantly dares us to take offence at some slightly offensive jokes before suddenly wallowing in self-pity about the injustices of life. Otherwise very little happens. I think Gervais thinks there\u2019s a central core to this but I\u2019m not sure where it is. It\u2019s mainly evidence of the writer having a crisis about the nature of his own existence and, also, the budget to animate it all because he is Ricky Gervais. I\u2019m not completely surprised the streaming revolution ended up this way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello comrades. I\u2019m pleased to see that another English celebrity has fallen into our devious tourist trap. Martin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[6016,18,117,19,17,85259,127,12474,29234],"class_list":["post-634927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-channel-4","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-martin-kemp","tag-netflix","tag-patrick-freyne","tag-ricky-gervais"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117088079195835477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}