TV review: Baz Ashmawy's Best Place to Be moves into dull, banter-ish territory
Baz Ashmawy travels across Europe meeting Irish people who have uprooted the lives they had in Ireland to make a home elsewhere in new series Best Place to Be
I prefer Baz Ashmawy when he’s jumping out of a plane with his mother. He has this goofy energy that’s suited to action. But in (RTÉ1 and RTÉ Player), he’s too much.
I like the premise. Baz is sent off around the world to find Irish people who escaped the old sod and basically ask them do they ever miss the place.
This has all the makings of a brilliant hate watch because people who move abroad are insufferably smug about it. (All I have to do to get angry is read those articles by Irish people who found their true selves in Malmo.)
But Baz spoils the first half of the first episode by being way too hyper for chilled couple, Joan and John, who uprooted their sons from Roscommon to move to Catalonia.
He shouts banter at them, so after a while, you sense they’re glad to be out of Ireland if this is the way people have gone.
It’s a shame because they have a great story. They left Boyle in Roscommon, partially because mother Joan didn’t want her boys growing up in a still-stifled Ireland when it came to sexuality.
They rocked up in Sitges in Spain with zero plan and even less Spanish. In fairness, they went to the bother of getting Spanish lessons for their sons before they started school in their new home.
Unfortunately, all the other kids spoke Catalan. Joan just shrugged her shoulders at this and said they had to get on with it.
Joan and John and the boys eventually moved to a handsome town in Catalonia you’ve never heard of, where they opened a hotel and started making their own wine. I would have hated them if they weren’t so nice.
The other side of this story was a couple from Dublin, Róisín and Rene. They were sleek and very un-Irish so Baz didn’t bother trying Paddy-banter with them.
It might have been better if he did because this was a very dull story. Baz went to help Róisín in her event styling business.
There was a lot of Baz walking around Barcelona complaining about the heat.
It wasn’t funny or dramatic, there was nothing at stake. It was just Baz telling a well-mannered event stylist that he was roasting.
They should have bungee jumped from the top of the Sagrada Familia cathedral. It would have been random, but so was Baz setting a table in a dining room.
We’ve all gone on holidays and decided we’re wasting our lives away in Ireland. That makes this show a good idea, and with the right guests, it’s a great window into how humans make a home for themselves.
Joan and John went to Spain and shrugged when they found out they had taught their sons the wrong language. It’s a good story and it didn’t do the sons, who feature here too, any harm.
But in the absence of a good story it’s just Baz talking about the weather. And that’s dull.
