Clive Merry’s African Adventure review – A fantastic show full of fun, joy and hope | television

AAfter decades as a BBC journalist, and more recently one of the corporation’s most popular news presenters, you might associate Clive Merry with more serious endeavours. In fact, it was a little disturbing to see him – just a few hours before presenting his latest Trump-flavored bulletin last Tuesday – reclining on the One Show sofa to promote his latest travel writing, declaring himself a “warrior god.” Although this last pivot may seem unlikely (he previously presented Clive Myrie’s Italian Road Trip in 2023, and Clive Myrie’s BAFTA-winning Caribbean Adventure in 2024), I’m here for it. As a cultural historian, Merry is unabashedly funny and enthusiastic, and his African adventure is no exception. Set in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Morocco, this series of 10 half-hour episodes is full of joy and hope, while not entirely embracing the approach of listening to some of the larger issues affecting the continent – ​​whether environmental concerns or health inequalities.

We begin in South Africa, a place Merry knows well from his time working there as a foreign correspondent for the BBC. He meets his former colleague Milton Nkosi, and the two reflect on the stories we tend to hear about the country. Nkosi says the news “is not wrong, but it can be one-sided.” What happened in Soweto is a beautiful thing: a corrective to some of those more difficult stories about the country and its largest town, one that also acknowledges its complex history. He says Merry was inspired to enter journalism primarily by stories he saw on the news back home in Bolton about apartheid. Now, all these decades later, he finds himself having lunch with Nkosi and Ndileka Mandela, Nelson’s great-granddaughter. They reflect on Mandela Sr.’s humanity, and Merry seems genuinely moved when she discovers — by chance — that they’re eating the great man’s favorite food (braised oxtail, if you were wondering).

South Africa is full of fun: “Banksy who?” says Merry, as he grabs an aerosol can and helps artist Senzo Nhlapo with some street art. Subversion is the theme of the entire series, in fact, whether he’s cooking a big pot of rabbit stew, a South African dish with Indian roots (“I feel like I’m rowing a boat in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Races,” he says, which is challenging) or helping out at a craft center in Durban to support women with HIV/AIDS (“Maybe in about six months,” he says, eyeing the small portion of embroidered pin he’s managed to complete. “I’m going to have a South African flag.”) Whether it’s Lessons in swing, jazz drumming or dancing to the country’s booming amapiano dance music, you can never fault his enthusiasm.

As mentioned earlier, the series doesn’t shy away from tackling some of the more difficult issues affecting Africa. The strongest part of the series are the episodes filmed in Ghana, where Meri covers a lot of contemporary and historical topics. As the child of Jamaican parents who came to Britain during the Windrush era, Merry knew he was of West African descent due to transatlantic slavery. Here, he visits the vast forts where enslaved people were held: “I’ve spent my whole life reporting on the inhumanity of human beings to their fellow human beings, but this is personal.” He was also welcomed by the Fante people in a naming ceremony that is a pure joy to watch, and he is happy with his new title: Papa Kojo Abaka. As for the contemporary, the deeply disturbing issue of textile waste (mostly from the West) prompted Merry to visit the Or Foundation in Accra, masters of recycled fashion who make eye-catching garments out of sportswear that would otherwise end up polluting the country’s beaches. He meets people with ingenious ideas for solving the continent’s biggest problems, including a startup whose AI chatbot aims to provide health advice to Nigerians on the go, amid an alarming shortage of doctors (astoundingly, we’re told that about a third of maternal deaths worldwide occur in the country).

The Morocco episodes feel more like a traditional travel series, but they’re still a lot of fun – even if milking goats with Clive Merry has a touch of Partridge about it, as an idea. However, this is a really great series that shows that a much-criticized celebrity travel show can be educational, informative, and truly impactful (and, most importantly, that destinations other than Italy are available). And with so much to see in Africa, hopefully they’ll give him a few weeks off from the news again soon.