Martin Kemp<\/a> and\u00a0his son, Roman, to take viewers\u00a0on a tour of Ireland. Which to be fair, the two men address in the first three minutes. Martin lived\u00a0in the country briefly in the 80s during his\u00a0Spandau Ballet era, we\u2019re told. His mum \u201calways said\u201d she was half\u00a0Irish but \u2013 as Roman points out \u2013 the family did an ancestral DNA test and they\u2019re actually Germanic.<\/p>\nStill, they\u2019re keen for a rare chance to spend time together away without the rest of the family. \u201cWe\u2019ve never done it before!\u201d Martin says with excitement. \u201cFor\u00a0good reason,\u201d Roman replies.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
Accept that premise and you\u2019re in for a perfectly reasonable time. Part father-and-son buddy movie, part exploration of Irish folklore and landscapes, Irish Road Trip is a\u00a0love letter to both people and place, albeit one that doesn\u2019t quite know what tone to land on.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s humour, most successfully when Roman \u2013 clearly thoughtful and witty \u2013 finds opportunities to poke fun at his dad. When they explore keening \u2013 the traditional Irish vocal lament for the dead \u2013 and Martin does a double take on the word, Roman quips he should know all about \u201ccleaners\u201d as he has about 12 back home to look after his mansion. The jaunty Irish folk music that pops up every 10 minutes reassures\u00a0the\u00a0viewer we\u2019re all here to have a lovely time.<\/p>\n
Prison break \u2026 Martin and Roman take a boat over to Spike Island. Photograph: Sphere Abacus<\/p>\n
And yet a fair portion of the content is melancholic. At one point, Roman touchingly admits he\u2019s thinking about his own mortality \u2013 and the future death of his parents \u2013 more as he gets older, to the extent it sometimes keeps him awake at night.<\/p>\n
Other sections are outright distressing, especially the tour around Spike Island in Cork Harbour \u2013 known as \u201cIreland\u2019s Alcatraz\u201d 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\u2019t help when the tour guide declares that she sometimes sees a ghost. On the ferry ride back, Roman tells Martin that\u2019s the first time he\u2019s ever been somewhere without hope.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t 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\u2019d\u00a0just be seeing Roman taking the keys to his car.<\/p>\n
On paper, I\u2019m the target audience for the series. I\u2019m English-Irish: my grandfather was a jockey in the Grand National; I inherited a Waterford crystal whiskey glass from my Nan; I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019re told that a local has a key to get in the tomb (yes, really), Roman encourages his dad to go to\u00a0her house to ask for it. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t like meeting new people,\u201d Roman says to the camera as he proudly watches Martin knock at\u00a0the front door.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0and family.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next for the Kemps? A German road trip? I\u2019ve heard they\u2019ve got suitable DNA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re someone who believes the celebrity travelogue genre has been\u00a0pushed too far, Martin & Roman\u2019s Irish Road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-586827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}