Love In The Country review: Anna Geary presents an enjoyable show on rural dating
Love in the Country presenter Anna Geary.
Presented by the ever-affable Anna Geary, the premise of Love In The Country is simple. Based on the international format of Farmer Wants a Wife, the series features singletons living in rural Ireland, who would like to meet a partner but who feel their location is preventing them in doing so.
Our first singleton is Alanagh - an impressive Roscommon woman who is giving Taylor Swift a run for her money in terms of prolific output. A student, farmer, and part-time bartender, her schedule is so jam-packed it’s no wonder she’s had to outsource finding a fella to the national broadcaster.
In one of the more endearing aspects of the show, wannabe suitors write letters to the respective singletons in a bid to get shortlisted for a meet and greet. Next, the herd of earnest letter-writers who make the cut are rounded up at a Georgian house, the whole thing feeling very much like a stag party, but with less chance of arrest.
At the end of this round, Alanagh chooses three lucky guys - Ben, Brian, and Scott, who head down to her farm the following weekend with the hope of winning her affections.
Alanagh is such a busy bee that when her three suitors arrive she is off doing her work replacement for college - an iconic move on her part. Ben, Brian and Scott are left in the care of Alanagh’s mother Jackie, who dutifully lights a scented candle to diffuse any potential awkwardness as we wait for Alanagh to beat the traffic.
Meanwhile, Rob the pharmacist-farmer from West Cork is spoiled for choice as a gaggle of women have written to him - there’s even some laminating, an effort which screams commitment to the cause. At the end he picks Lucia, Avril and Aisling - all of whom seem to share the same beautiful blonde head.
Arriving in Castletownbere, Lucia isn’t playing around, having brought homemade banana bread in a bid to bag her man. Avril lands next, and, presumably raging that she didn’t bring her own scones, does some obligatory dog-petting. Seeing Avril and Lucia sitting side by side the whole thing does slightly whack of sister wives, but it’s nothing some close-ups of freshly iced cupcakes won’t fix.
There is something uniquely Irish about it all - the nervousness of the contestants themselves highlighting, perhaps, that the reality dating format may be well-trodden territory for our neighbours across the water, but it is still very much new ground for Irish singletons, and is all the more watchable for it.
- Love In The Country is on RTÉ 2 and the RTÉ Player
