Armchair Travel

Longing for a quieter life?

Dangerous living, melting ice caps and crocs where they shouldn’t be – travel TV raises the stakes this issue. But you can always escape to Scotland…

o you have to live on the edge to feel alive? Sue DPerkins: Perfectly Legal (Netflix) certainly gives that theory a bit of welly during the self-deprecating presenter’s journey through Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Bolivia. She meets a local comedian in each country, who steers Perkins toward activities – testing a bullet proof vest in Bogotá, standing in the explosive centre of Tultepec’s National Fair of Pyrotechnics – that are off limits back in the UK. Freed from BBC restrictions, Perkins gets royally hammered and veers off the PR-approved beaten track to show a side of South America that viewers don’t usually see. After all that danger, the tourist boards will be breathing a sigh of relief at this month’s other new series, which show off destinations at their most epic, and characterful locals at their warmest. This is admittedly pretty easy when you’re campervanning around Scotland, as Martin Compston’s Scottish Fling (BBC iPlayer) reveals. The Line of Duty star’s cheerful, bantering six-part return to his epic homeland takes in the coastlines, the Highlands and the islands, making for arresting viewing. Similarly appealing is Griff Rhys Jones’ new six-part series, Griff’s Canadian Adventure (All4), which takes him east to west through the country, via the frozen north, to soak in that fabled scenery and culture, and the people who call it home. Australia also gets the spotlight of attention in Netflix’s cliffhanger-heavy Wild Croc Territory. Fronted by Matt Wright – a modern-day heir to the late Steve Irwin’s mantle – who catches and relocates problem crocs. This ten-part show takes us to some of the Northern Territory’s wildest, muddiest and least-visited corners, including the Finniss River and Tiwi Island, all in the company of Wright’s young family and some of the NT’s grumpiest reptiles.

Also undergoing his own r ugged relocation is Alex Bescoby, who takes a 67-year-old Land Rover Series 1 on a 19,000km, 23-country, setback-strewn drive from Singapore to London on The Last Overland (All4; four episodes). He’s hoping to recreate (in reverse) the original route taken by the same motor in 1955 during a landmark travel documentary (produced by a ver y young David Attenborough), navigating not only some of South-East Asia’s hairiest roads but also the often-momentous changes to the countries that have happened in the meantime.

And speaking of Attenborough, Frozen Planet II (BBC iPlayer) is still on iPlayer. Despite its astonishing photography, remarkable insight and fresh discoveries evoking a profound sense of wonder, the show (narrated by the great man) also never shies from the environmental disaster unfolding in the Earth’s polar regions. In some ways, rather like Sue Perkins, we’re all living much closer to the edge these days.

Highland times

(top–bottom) Martin Compston [left of middle] goes in search of what makes modern Scotland tick; the great David Attenborough has climate change in his sights as he looks at how wildlife deals with shrinking ice in Frozen Planet II