Johnny Vegas: Carry on Glamping, review: as endearing – if exhausting – as the man himself
Johnny Vegas: Carry On Glamping (Channel 4) is “a mid-life crisis that turned into a TV show”, according to the man himself. The first series ran in 2021, following the comedian’s attempts to set up a glamping business. In this new series, he’s looking for a bigger site. And a helicopter.
The helicopter isn’t for flying. The USP of Vegas’s site is that all the accommodation is in refurbished vehicles. He already has a Maltese bus called Patricia. People pay a lot for this sort of thing – Patricia costs £225 a night, according to the website, although she does have a bathroom so you don’t need to trek to the loo in the middle of the night wearing a head torch.
Vegas is accompanied everywhere by his personal assistant, the lovely Bev, who keeps a handle on things. We all need a Bev in our lives, but Vegas really does. He announced a year ago that he had been diagnosed with ADHD, which explains his impulsive behaviour. He dives into conversations with a charity about their helicopters (why does a donkey sanctuary own the remains of five Sea Kings?) without checking the price.
He forms an instant attachment to a site in Anglesey, because he holidayed there as a boy, but it’s Bev who points out that there is no infrastructure and amenities are miles away. Eventually, he finds a Puma helicopter which the owner says would fetch £13,600 on the open market, but within a minute he’s sold it to Vegas for £4,000. He takes delivery of a mouldy wreck of a boat, which does not go down well with the restorers, who declare: “It’s disgusting. It stinks. It’s a horrible sweat palace.”
There is cross-pollination with other TV series. We watch Vegas record an appearance on Big Zuu’s Big Eats (a cooking show) and act in Meet the Richardsons (a sitcom of sorts). One of the venues being offered as a possible glamping site is Jimmy’s Farm, which once had its own Channel 4 series. I wouldn’t be surprised if Stu, the engineer helping Vegas source and do up his helicopter, gets his own show.
Vegas is endearing but exhausting company, buoyant one moment and despondent the next. But when so many TV shows involve celebrities taking freebie jaunts/doing up houses/tooling about in the jungle for exposure and cash, at least Vegas’s heart seems to be in it.
