A tiny figure is beckoning to us from across a blazing stretch of beach. We approach, tentatively. Who is this squinting gesticulator? Closer inspection reveals a hat (sensible) and a suitcase (brown). The heart leaps. Could it be Paddington? Close. It’s Sandi Toksvig. “And this,” she says, as the camera swoops over her shoulder to reveal a gasp-inducing sweep of Mediterranean coastline, “is my Great Riviera Rail Trip”. A montage of coming attractions sets out our guide’s stall. Here is Toksvig eating bouillabaisse in a bib; Toksvig bobbing, seal-like, in an infinity pool; Toksvig pounding up a set of steps, her fringe bouncing like a blond trampette in the breeze. The idea? “I want to explore the region’s rich past and vibrant present,” she says. “A simple rail trip of just over one hundred miles” allows her to take in the artists, writers and “freethinkers” who helped transform the Riviera from a fluttering ribbon of snoozy fishing villages into “one of the world’s dream destinations”.
So, it’s all aboard the Toksvig express for the first of a four-part choo-choo along the Côte d’Azur.
“It’s going to be,” she says, the sun glinting off the olive in her martini, “hell.”
With Sandi’s Great Riviera Rail Trip (Saturday 29 November, 8.05pm, Channel 4), Toksvig joins Joanna Lumley, Romesh Ranganathan, Michael Palin, Joe Lycett, Rylan Clark, Danny Dyer, Dani Dyer, Uncle Tom Cobley and all in the ancient and venerable celebrity TV tradition of going to another country then wearing linen in it. But this is not some blindingly veneered Love Islander guffawing their way across Foreignstan in a tuk-tuk. This is Sandi Toksvig. Not quite a national treasure, perhaps (too abrupt, too politics-y), but certainly skipping towards national trinket status. And effortlessly entertaining company she is too, whether she’s wandering around Edith Wharton’s terraced garden in the hills above Hyères (“Oh, I wish she was here. We could have tea”) or meeting the donkeys helping to keep Plage de Pampelonne free of litter (“What’s this one’s name? Justin? Marvellous.”)
Sandi Toksvig enjoying the Bouillabaisse in Sanary-sur-Mer. Photograph: Luc Tremoulet/Cornelia Street Productions/Channel 4
This is not the QI host’s first travelogue, of course. Extraordinary Escapes found her trekking around the UK in a selection of Britain’s worst cagoules. Still, the series proved conclusively that Toksvig is one of TV’s great pootlers. There are few sights as cheering as the tiny Dane, bundled up in a scarf, ambling merrily around a museum, or scurrying down a continental alleyway, like a Womble that’s just been chased out of a boulangerie following a misunderstanding over an eclair. There are many such trudgings here, the majority of which are undertaken while our be-hatted guide clutches a small suitcase, the contents of which remain a mystery (my guess: marmalade sandwiches). And so we’re off to Sanary-sur-Mer, where a local historian shepherds Toksvig through the area’s pre-second world war creative boom, when an influx of exiled German writers turned the dinky port town into a zingy literary salon. (Key takeaway: Sanary resident Aldous “Brave New World” Huxley thought the newcomers were, by and large, wankeurs.) And then? There is bouillabaisse, a boat trip, a brief sojourn to a market square for the obligatory Let’s Watch Some Pensioners Play Boules For A Bit bit and, finally, a visit to a biodynamic vineyard for a restorative gulp of rosé.
It’s jaunty, unfussy stuff, even if there is the occasional sense that we’re not quite getting the full Toksvig. Some of the artier sections feel concertinaed and there are points, such as a scene in which Toksvig reflects on Wharton’s feminist credentials, at which you suspect Channel 4 is waiting for the talking to stop so it can go back to looking at donkeys.
But enough quibbling. The sky is blue, the sea a cocktail dress of marbled teal and everyone from Toksvig (“Isn’t this wonderful?”) to Justin (“…”) is clearly having a ball.
“What’s not to like about my Great Riviera Rail Trip?” Toksvig asks, peering through her binoculars at the sea, as if suddenly worried a passing crab might have a pop at the bouillabaisse. Nonsense. He wouldn’t dream of it. The answer to her question is, of course, rien. Marvellous.