Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure has more in common with Meghan Markle than Jeremy Clarkson
Never one to knowingly undersell himself, Noel Edmonds has been busily promoting his show as the new Clarkson's Farm. Having watched it all, I can tell you that this would only be true if Jeremy Clarkson abandoned all self-knowledge and spent every episode behaving like a complete prat, while sharing a shedload of pseudo-scientific woo-woo. Clarkson's Farm vs Noel's Funny Farm. There's really no contest.
Edmonds upped sticks several years ago for a new life in New Zealand, where he has spent tens of millions of dollars on an 800-acre estate called River Haven. It boasts – 'boasts' being an appropriate word to use in the Noel-sphere – a vineyard, restaurant, wellness centre and a pub named The Bugger Inn. At one point he suggests taking on Clarkson in a pub quiz: 'I quite fancy The Bugger Inn taking on Diddly Squat. We'd wipe 'em out.'
But however much he tries to copy elements of Clarkson's show, from farmyard sidekicks to messing around with heavy machinery, Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure actually occupies the midpoint between With Love, Meghan and Castaway with Phillip Schofield. Which is to say that it mixes prettily shot lifestyle nonsense with a transparent yearning to reclaim the affections of the British public and a determination to address perceived slights. Like Castaway, it is revealing in ways that the subject never intended.
Before we get into the psychology of the thing, though, let's explore Edmonds' health regimen. The show opens with him having a cold shower in his garden, which he tells us is one of the six components of his lifestyle formula. He's undeniably in great shape for a 76-year-old, so maybe we should all give it a try. Eating well and exercising seem pretty standard, even if he refers to the exercising as 'tranquil power' (this just means using an exercise machine quite slowly, as far as I can tell). Then things get a little more mad.
Edmonds has thrice-weekly stints in a hyperbaric chamber with an oxygen tube up his nose, and lies on a bed below what look like a row of cheap Christmas lights but are apparently quartz crystals surrounded with something called 'orgone' which help him to connect with 'the bigger matrix, the universal energy system'. Mm-hmm. He 'VIBEs', which stands for 'visualisation of body energy'. Then there's the 'structured water', which is somehow magnetised and 'doesn't have to process through your liver, kidneys and all that other malarkey'. Edmonds thinks he knows a lot about science. 'Why, at the point of what some people call death but I call departure, why does the body weigh less than it did when it had life? And that is a scientific fact.' Well, it isn't, but Edmonds believes it's because your soul has left your body.
The best thing that Edmonds has going for him is his wife, Liz, a former make-up artist on Deal or No Deal, whom he dubs his 'earth angel'. This is the one crossover with Clarkson's Farm – Liz even looks like Lisa, Clarkson's other half. They met (in 2007) at six minutes past 11, and so the clocks in their house are perpetually set to that time as a reminder of their love. This seems a little… intense.
Edmonds, a good TV presenter and a great creative mind in his day, is at pains to come across as warm, self-deprecating and brimming with humour. He taps into the zaniness that was his calling card on Noel's House Party. But there are hints of brittleness and an Alan Partridge self-regard. He has commissioned the props studio behind Lord of the Rings to make a giant sculpture of a knight which commemorates his victory in a financial case against HBOS. When an employee says they were together in a past life, Edmonds seems rather worried that the employee might have been above him in the pecking order back in Ancient Rome. He goes on about his partnership with Liz but refers to their 50:50 efforts as the work of 'Team Noel'.
There is a brief reference at the outset to the fact that his arrival wasn't universally welcomed by the locals. 'There were a few people not being very kind,' he says, but glosses over it. When he relaunches his pub, the crowds seem quite sparse – in contrast with the queues at Diddly Squat – but it's unclear whether that is down to a likeability gap between him and Clarkson, or because River Haven appears to be in the middle of nowhere. Don't expect an honest, fly-on-the-wall documentary. Check the credits and you'll see that the 'series consultant' on the show is, um, Noel Edmonds.
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