Latest news with #KiwiAdventure
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Noel Edmonds complains he is 'haemorrhaging money' on £15m New Zealand estate
Noel Edmonds reveals he is losing money with his business in New Zealand when the pouring rain puts people off coming to his pub. "We're haemorrhaging money at the moment," he says in ITV's Kiwi Adventure. The Deal or No Deal presenter, 76, set up life across the pond in New Zealand, leaving behind the UK forever in 2018. He bought up a £15m estate, River Haven, of 12 properties including a pub called The Bugger Inn and his own vineyard. Inviting the cameras into his life once again, the TV star has filmed a fly-on-the-wall reality show Kiwi Adventure which is now streaming on ITVX. In dramatic scenes in episode two, Edmonds is stood watching the downpours at the start of the season where he shares that the business is losing money as a result of the weather. He says: "When you come to New Zealand, you change your view about your relationship between the weather and the economy. "We're haemorrhaging money at the moment because you have to take staff on in anticipation of the guests coming. We're going to have to have a spectacular November and December to balance the books." Ever the optimist, Edmonds doesn't lose hope that things will turn out for the better. He says: "I believe in the cosmos. I believe everything happens for a reason." Although, he does admit: "Just struggling at the moment to come up with a good reason here!" It's early spring and The Bugger Inn pub should have lots of customers but there is barely anyone in sight because of the rain — despite their best efforts of trying to get people to come in. Earlier on, Edmonds had admitted it has been hard setting up his own business. He tells the cameras: "New Zealand is a great place to come to but it's not the easiest place to set up a business. We've done a fascinating thing with the River Haven adventure. Will it be the move that sustains us for years to come? Watch this space!" Despite the struggles, it's clear that Edmonds loves his new life in New Zealand with his wife Liz. "We were drawn here by the energy of the area," he says. Their new life in New Zealand is a far cry from their lives when they first met on the set of Deal or No Deal in the UK in 2006. It's been six years since they packed up their lives in the UK. The TV star has the chance to share why he decided to leave the UK for good in 2018. He says in Kiwi Adventure: "When people say to me, 'What do you miss at the UK?' I find myself going back to why I left. Because all the things I miss about Britain are the reasons I left. By that I mean that the country changed so much, so fast, so fundamentally, that I found myself missing a quieter country... We are not trees so you can move." Edmonds reveals he aims to have no regrets when he "gets to the end". Elsewhere, Liz also explains the couple had not initially thought they would set up the business. She says: "None of this was planned. None of it was planned at all. There was no plan whatsoever to buy a vineyard and do this. I don't know it was just a feeling of we could work on this, we could develop this." Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure airs on ITV1 and ITVX on Friday, 20 June at 9pm.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I am Jesus!': the TV brilliance of Noel Edmonds
He is risen. He is risen indeed. Six years after he huffed off to New Zealand in a hail of tuts, tsks and never-liked-you-anyways, Noel Edmonds has returned to our screens with a message for humanity. 'We're not trees,' he proclaims. 'We can move.' Noel Edmonds – and there can be no doubt that this is very much Noel Edmonds – is referring to his decision to leave the UK with his wife (Liz, 55) in order to establish an 800-acre hospitality business in the sobbingly beautiful South Island idyll of Ngatimoti. He doesn't like Britain any more, he says. It has 'changed'. But Noel – as his new programme, Kiwi Adventure, makes blisteringly clear – has not changed. He looks like a child's sand drawing of Aslan. He believes in 'the universal energy system', wears combatively tight linen T-shirts and has baths so cold he fears openly for the future of his scrotum. He is a deeply odd man. And yet. From the depths of the oddness re-emerges an imperishable truth: Noel Edmonds, for better or worse, is clinically incapable of making uninteresting TV. Here, then, are seven of the most notable emissions from the man's party cannon. 'Swap Shopppp,' bugled the theme tune, heralding the all-too-brief golden age of Saturday morning TV, an inflatable neon wonderland in which a jubilantly youthful Noel Edmonds could ask Kate Bush how she got her hair to go like that. Ferociously watchable studio quiz in which square-eyed families went cardigan-to-cardigan over questions about Blue Peter and Keith Chegwin. The winner? Knitwear. The runner-up? Telly. Noel's stewardship – aggressively serviceable action-slacks, smirk like the judgment of Zeus – would lend much-needed tension to the soft furnishings, thus plunging the McPerms of Perth and the Vauxhall-Cavaliers of Nantwich into a perpetual Scooby Doo-based deathmatch. Bring it back! Welcome ye to 'Crinkley Bottom,' an illusory fiefdom in which unsuspecting celebrity visitors (Dave Lee Travis, Edwina Currie etc) were greeted with mockery, gunge and often startlingly physical 'gotchas'. Pivotal to the chaos were Noel (presentational style: giggling necromancer) and bubonic familiar Mr Blobby, whose monosyllabic distress and sudden bouts of confused violence would attract audiences of 15 million. The House Party manifesto was as simple as the era in which it was conceived: hysterical conviviality for all, unless you're Dave Lee Travis, in which case we'll break your legs. Noël, Noël, Noël, Noël / Born is the King of Bra-aa-aaacknell. And Hove. And Ipswich, Canada, Finland and Crewe. The premise whispered of doom and seasonal biliousness but in reality the annual sight of Edmonds guffawing around the world to deliver festive reunions and white goods to the sickly and deserving was … not great, precisely, but also, crucially, not cack. The reason? Our host's unique ability to sidestep mawkishness while dressed as, variously, Santa, a Victorian dignitary and a garden gnome. He's called Noel for a reason, you know. The concept? Simple. The Noel? Guarded; tightly bearded; visibly uncomfortable around pensioners. The subsequent, sweltering tension – will Doris from Thanet attempt to engage him in a conversation about her dead husband for longer than her allotted 30 seconds? – would turn a daytime gameshow about cardboard boxes into a potentially lethal game of chance. Emboldened by the success of Deal or No Deal?, Edmonds' (brief) return to Saturday night TV found our subject very much in 'Noel's narked off' mode, sprinting through the obligatory 'members of the public rewarded for charitable deeds' bits in order to address the vexed issue of 'Broken Britain'. And lo, Noel didst upbraid bungling councils, bellow about bylaws and deliver sudden, snarling exhortations to know thy consumer rights lest the heavens split asunder and ye be cast into the eternal fire of implied warranty (Hotpoint 3:11-13). The subtext? I (Noel Edmonds) am angry, thus you (the viewer/Broken Britain/God) must pay. It was, in a very real sense, Brexit's patient zero. 'I am rocking,' intones Noel, emerging from his hyperbaric chamber like a blow-dried Christ. 'I. AM. ROCKING.' Broadcast this sort of stuff from a regional news studio and viewers would be lunging for the nearest mallet. But here, buttressed by a gasp-inducing mountain range and a preternaturally tolerant wife, Edmonds takes on an air of … vulnerability? Likability? Besides, the man's 76. If he wants to say 'I am Jesus' while wearing utility shorts in an outdoor shower, who are we to object? After six decades of televisual brilliance, awfulness, jumpers, Alan Partridge-esque hubris and comb-through hair colour, Noel Edmonds, perhaps more than anyone, has earned the right to be Noel Edmonds. Let us give thanks. Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure is on ITV1 at 9pm.
Spectator
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
The triumph of Noel Edmonds
When Deal or No Deal hit our TV screens in 2005, it soon became a national obsession. I remember hotfooting it from the train station to my house, desperate to make sure I didn't miss it. This was the most infatuated I'd been with a TV show since I was child. Noel Edmonds, the show's presenter, was a big reason why: his witty banter with contestants and the show's fictional 'banker' had me – and Britain – captivated. Deal or No Deal was basically just people opening boxes. In most presenter's hands it would have been a bit of a yawn. But Edmonds made it appointment viewing. Edmonds is one of the great figures of British television Now, thank goodness, Edmonds is back: after a seven-year hiatus, he's returning with a new series exploring his life in New Zealand, where he runs an 800-acre estate. ITV's Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure, which starts tonight, is full of quirk: he refers to his third wife, whom he met when she was his make-up artist on Deal or No Deal, as his 'earth angel' and explains that all the clocks in their house are fixed at 11.06, the time the couple first met. Edmonds looks amazing for 76 and puts this down to a wellness routine that includes crystal healing, tranquil power, infrared saunas and oxygen chambers. TV hosts are often a bit weird and if you measure Edmonds against more bland presenters like Dermot O'Leary and Ben Shephard, he seems very weird. But perhaps the side of us that now sniggers at Edmonds is uncomfortable with the Edmonds in ourselves. We'd love to be chasing our dreams as enthusiastically as he is. We probably wish we too could be so open about our own idiosyncrasies, so we laugh at his instead. But there's another side of us that can't help but cheer him on. It's this side he appeals to in his new show. 'Maybe people who have had negative thoughts about me personally will see this and see an honesty, a sincerity, a commitment, a positivity,' he says. 'Maybe a few of them will change their views'. Let's hope so. Around the time that his stint on Deal or No Deal came to an end in 2016, people stopped laughing with Edmonds and laughed at him instead. It's not hard to see why: Edmonds cuts a curious figure. There's something of the Lassie dog about his appearance, and the way he's embraced so many unserious TV shows while often taking himself painfully seriously doesn't sit well. Alan Partridge and David Brent both poked fun at him, perhaps an indirect tribute from their creators, who surely took some inspiration from Edmonds. But his kooky personality shouldn't mean that we ignore something that isn't often said about him: he is one of the great figures of British television. Born in Essex, Edmonds started off on radio before moving to TV in the 1980s, where he presented Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, my first favourite programme. The madcap entertainment show was broadcast live for three hours on Saturday mornings, and allowed kids to phone-in and swap unwanted belongings with other children. He also presented Top of the Pops, Top Gear and Telly Addicts, and became the toast of television during the 1980s thanks to his impish energy, which chimed with a more optimistic nation. He was the first British broadcaster to brand himself distinctly from his shows, and he began to sometimes refer to himself in the third person. In the 1990s, he presented Noel's House Party, which was regularly watched by 18 million viewers and was described by a senior corporation executive as 'the most important show on the BBC'. The stunning success of the series, and its bulbous hero Mr Blobby, showed how Edmonds could tap into our sense of silliness, but it was dropped in 1999, when viewing figures started to fall. Edmonds, who'd been omnipresent on the airwaves for nearly three decades, suddenly disappeared. But when he came back six years later it was with something special. In the dark, moody Bristol warehouse where Deal or No Deal was filmed, he raised the tension by increasingly injecting a spiritual edge. He encouraged talk of telepathy, of box numbers having different energies and of a mystical force being at work in the game. You don't get that on Countdown. Wearing tight floral shirts, with his trademark bouffant still going strong, he was as charismatic as ever. As the atmosphere became ever more esoteric, he seemed a bit like an aspiring cult leader who hoped he'd finally found his flock. Where The Weakest Link had a bitchy host in Anne Robinson, Deal or No Deal had one who preached positive thinking to the contestants. A producer said later that the role was 'God given' for Edmonds. The columnist AA Gill wrote that watching Deal or No Deal was 'like putting heroin in your remote control'. That was a ridiculous thing to say: it was far more addictive than that. But the show's success didn't last, so Edmonds took his spiritual message beyond the studio. He claimed that he'd found an electromagnetic pulse machine that 'tackles cancer' and suggested that the disease may be caused by a 'negative attitude', a remark he later apologised for. Edmonds also offered to phone up people's sick pets and give them a motivational talk, even counselling a cat live on air on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2. He told the Guardian that the UK's population was at least ten million higher than official figures, saying that he worked this out using a formula he devised called 'the three 'F's' – food, faeces and farewells'. Edmonds went from national treasure to something of a joke. He upped sticks to New Zealand in 2018, settling in Ngatimoti, a small town at the north end of New Zealand's South Island. Many of his fans thought that was it. But now – thank goodness – Edmonds is back. I can't wait to watch him on TV again.
Daily Mirror
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Noel Edmonds' New Zealand life and love of cosmic energy is unveiled in ITV show
Having left showbusiness, Noel Edmonds is enjoying a new life in New Zealand, where he focuses on energy, healing crystals and being in tune with the cosmos... Ever wondered what happened to Noel Edmonds? For decades, he used to rule the radio waves and Saturday night telly, then suddenly he disappeared. Cut to Noel in his swimming trunks standing under an icy cold shower saying gratitudes, with a few sheep wandering around in the background. In 2018, Noel turned his back on showbusiness and moved 11,500 miles away with his wife Liz to New Zealand. 'I think I might have found my paradise,' he says in Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure, which starts tonight (June 20) on ITV at 9pm. The couple have spent the last two years building a business in the quiet town of Ngatimoti. River Haven, with the strapline 'Positively Together', boats a vineyard, coffee cart, general store, and a restaurant and pub, called The Bugger Inn. On their 800 acres of land, Noel also wants to create a wellness sanctuary and even New Zealand's first energy garden, whatever that is. 'I am John Wayne, I am Clint Eastwood!' says Noel, delighted to be holding a power tool. He's clearly still a showman. This three-parter follows the challenges, from being accepted by the locals, to bad weather, the absence of tourists and everyone else going bust. But most fascinating is the insight into Noel's complete dedication to energy and healing. Lying under a quartz crystal healing bed, the 76-year-old talks about his 'light bulb moment' about his health - 'We are all body energy systems'. He dedicates his good health to six things - nutrition and good food, good 'structured' water, pulsed electro magnetism, tranquil exercise, vibe (his term for 'visualisation of body energy;) and meditation. Throw in some cold showers and ice baths (we see him with his shirt off A LOT), saunas and a hyperbaric oxygen chamber three times a week and 'I am rocking,' he says. There is much talk of the matrix and universal energy. The couple even has a big clock permanently set to the specific time Noel and Liz met - she was his make up artist on Deal or No Deal. Noel says: 'Liz was sent to me. She is an Earth angel. The sustenance of her energy is my life blood. You will never pull us apart because we are one. I believe it's a gift from the cosmos. This was the time of my life.' Noel also opens up about the negative press he has received, saying: 'I do actually care what people think about me. Criticism does hurt. I'm hugely sensitive.' And he explains that he left Britain because the country changed so much. He says: 'I missed a quieter country. We're not trees, so we can move.' Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure is airing on ITV tonight at 9pm. There's plenty more on TV tonight - here's the best of the rest.. ALISON HAMMOND'S BIG WEEKEND, BBC1, 8.30pm In the last of this brilliant series, which will surely be commissioned for a second round, Alison spends the weekend with world champion boxer Tony Bellew. Visiting his house in Southport, Alison learns that Tony and his wife, Rachael, are in the middle of big house renovations. He opens up about life after retirement, sharing his struggles with boredom, missing the thrill of fights and the toll his boxing career has taken on his health. Tony reveals that due to the number of punches he's taken to the head, his memory has been affected, and he fears that there may be more health implications to come. He also shows Alison the ropes and puts her through her paces in the ring, revealing that he owes his life to his boxing gym. After taking on Tony on the pads, Alison and Tony head to Goodison Park, not only the home of Tony's beloved football team but the site where he won his world championship title. NOT GOING OUT, BBC1, 9pm For old school Friday night comedy, with a relentless stream of gags, surely this wins every time. Lee Mack, a veteran of the one-liner, plays Lee, who constantly finds himself in ridiculous, farcical situations, causing his wife Lucy (Sally Bretton) to spend the entire episode rolling her eyes. In this instalment (Mack's favourite episode), Lee brings a battered box back from the tip, with no idea what is in it. 'When I was a kid, going through the bins was like flicking through the Argos catalogue,' says Lee as he rips the box open. But gets a shock when he opens it in front of Lucy and finds what looks like a dead body, but actually turns out to be a robotic sex doll. 'It can't be human, the face looks like it's silicon,' says Lucy. 'Have you not seen Love Island?' quips Lee. What follows is the usual caper as Lee starts to realise what he's actually dealing with. EMMERDALE, ITV1, 7.30pm After a restless night, Robert bumps into Victoria outside Keepers. He clearly wants to avoid opening up to her about his time in prison. After she finally sits him down in Keepers for a chat, Vic's left worried that Robert still thinks he can win Aaron back. After Charity makes clear that she's definitely accompanying Sarah to her cancer operation, Sarah eventually expresses her gratitude. Paddy enlists Bob's help as he tries to get Bear to open up about what's burdening him. CORONATION STREET, ITV1, 8pm Debbie breaks the news to Ronnie and Leanne that she needs to cancel the awards ceremony as there's a flood at the hotel, but Leanne offers to host it at Speed Daal. Todd finds Theo in the living room repeatedly snapping the elastic band on his wrist. Millie tells them that living with her mum is stressing her out, but when Theo suggests she stays with them a bit longer, will Todd agree? Dee-Dee and James clash over Laila.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure review: Noel is the greatest tragicomic character of our time and this dark horse has as much charm as Clarkson's Farm
Noel Edmonds ' Kiwi Adventure Rating: The pitch for Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure must have been: let's do Clarkson's Farm, but with Noel Edmonds. Yes, let's. And it does not disappoint. It's as if one of Alan Partridge's most desperate pitches finally got made. I had, in fact, stopped holding out for 'youth hostelling with Chris Eubank ' or 'arm wrestling with Chas and Dave' but now feel hopeful again. This is top-quality entertainment, possibly not for the right reasons, but I watched two episodes (of the six) and was transfixed. Edmonds may be the greatest tragi- comic character of our time. Noel Edmonds moved to New Zealand in 2018. Ah, so that's where he's been for the past seven years, you probably hadn't been wondering. He was no longer a fan of Britain. He says: 'All the things I miss about Britain are the reasons I left. It changed so much, so fast, so fundamentally, that I found myself missing a quieter country.' He then adds perceptively: 'We are not trees so we can move.' His estate, River Haven, is a monumentally stunning 800 acres. Here he is attempting to run a restaurant, a pub, a vineyard, a wellness centre, a general store and a coffee shack. He wants to be clear: this is not about him. He and his 'earth angel' wife, Liz, 'could sit in a big house somewhere but we feel we need to make a difference'. He met Liz when she was his make-up artist on Deal or No Deal. She first walked into the make-up room at 11.06 on October 6 in 2006, so now all the clocks in their house are set to 11.06. 'I knew she was in the room before I turned round,' he remembers. 'You will never pull us apart… we are one.' They are happy together. They have warrior statues in their private garden 'because Liz believes I was an emperor or leader of men in my past'. (He also has a giant praying knight statue to counter 'dark forces'.) It's one fascinatingly bizarre moment after another. They look through a box of old photos and he finds one fromLive Aid. 'My company organised the air transport,' he says, 'at no cost to them.' He later says, randomly, 'I pay my tax.' It feels as if he's pleading with us: how could you not love me? How? That's the 'tragi' part, I guess. He is 76, with hair that still defies gravity and, you could say, fashion. He looks remarkably unchanged. He has, it turns out, quite the wellness regime. It involves lying on a bed under suspended crystals, pulse electromagnetism therapy, 'tranquil power' – using a multigym slowly, from the looks of it – saunas, ice-baths, a hyperbaric chamber ('it shoots pure oxygen into your body; I'm rocking!') and also 'VIBE'. This he explains, is his acronym for 'visualisation of body energy'. (Let's all pretend we haven't noticed it should be 'VOBE'.) He and Liz only drink 'structured water', which they make themselves. (Look it up.) Wikipedia describes it as a 'scam' but he says it is better absorbed than regular water. He likes to round off his sentences with: '…and that's a scientific fact'. Later it is: 'Your body is lighter after death because your soul weighs something… scientific fact.' No one has yet identified the scientific universe Edmonds gets his facts from. Remember when he said bad vibes could give you cancer? Or did he mean vobes? All this, and we haven't even got to his business yet! So, his pub is not called The Farmer's Dog and he doesn't sell a beer called Hawkstone. Instead, it is called 'The Bugger Inn' and his beers include Tits Up, Boring Bastard and Old Git. There is also a Dickens Cider 'that is very popular with the ladies.' No one has yet identified the humour universe he gets his jokes from either. He doesn't draw Clarkson-style crowds. On the day his restaurant opens for the season only a couple of people turn up. (It is pouring with rain, to be fair.) The pub stages a Halloween party that seems to have all the atmosphere of an underpopulated Saga event. He worries that the local community won't accept him but, lest we forget, 'there are people who have lived here all their lives who are saying thank you, thank you'. No, thank you, Noel. This is a blast.
