Some jolly TV artifice and a rare moment of authenticity: C4’s Miriam and Alan – Lost in Scotland reviewed

Thanks to Covid, the days are gone — or at least suspended — when a TV travel programme meant a thespian in a Panama hat wandering around souks and bravely trying some funny foreign food. Instead, we now have shows in which the presenters, often operating in pairs, drive around picturesque parts of Britain cranking up the bantz, with plenty of aerial shots of their car bowling along an abnormally empty road.

Take Miriam and Alan: Lost in Scotland — by my reckoning approximately Exhibit P. The premise here is that Alan Cumming and Miriam Margolyes are seeking to reconnect with their proud Caledonian roots, which is why the first stop was a Glasgow front door behind which Miriam’s father lived as a boy in 1901. And with that, her reconnection was pretty much complete, leaving her free to do what she does best — or anyway, most habitually: demonstrating how outrageous she is.