In a rustic the place a lot of society continues to be bisected alongside class traces, many have a really explicit picture of a intelligent particular person – and it’s roughly Stephen Fry. A grand-seeming Oxbridge-educated man with a fancy accent and an curiosity in artwork and opera, who can recite passages of basic literature. Rob Rinder, the legal barrister, broadcaster and host of Decide Rinder, suits properly into this mould and loves all issues “excessive tradition” and mental pursuits. He’s, as his co-host Rylan Clark says, “one of many cleverest blokes I do know”. In the meantime, Rinder says Clark “doesn’t know his arts from his elbow”. Nonetheless, over the course of the three episodes of Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour, Clark emerges because the good thoughts, with ranges of intelligence, wit and profundity that will have been missed as a result of there stays a notion of what a intelligent particular person is like.

The pair place themselves as an odd couple from completely different sides of the tracks, being good mates, each going by means of “painful divorces” who, regardless of their divergent pursuits, have determined to embark on a journey that represents a recent begin. The collection follows them by means of the “hedonism” of Venice, the Renaissance feast that’s Florence and the baroque glory of Rome, replicating a journey made by Lord Byron, 200 years after his loss of life at simply 36. However because the collection reminds us, this was not only a journey that Byron made: lots of the “poshos” of the period would journey to Italy as a ceremony of passage, a type of cultural training to ascertain themselves as erudite people who understood artwork, historical past and the methods of the world.

We first see Rinder in Venice aboard a gondola, wanting to soak up the historic traditions of town. Clark is in a glitzy speedboat and is a bit intimidated by all of the artwork and opera forward. However whereas Rinder is moved and fascinated by the galleries, concert events and archaeology of this and the opposite two cities, his response comes throughout as a bit extra shallow than Clark’s reflections. When discussing Caravaggio, castratos or the Colosseum, Rinder at all times appears to provide the prototypical clever-person reply, whereas Clark connects to his environment on a molecular stage, seeing in historic ruins existential questions that connect with his personal mortality and want to attain greatness.

Clark additionally brings a beautiful vulnerability to the display screen. Not solely is he coping with heartbreak, but additionally with the lingering insecurity of getting been an object of ridicule in his early profession. It’s a very exceptional journey that he has been on, having first come to public consideration because the runner-up on Signed By Katie Worth earlier than being labelled a “joke act” on The X Issue and at last hitting his stride as a presenter on This Morning, Massive Brother’s Bit on the Aspect and Prepared Regular Prepare dinner. However even when he’s greatest identified for being a larger-than-life camp icon who pokes enjoyable at himself, it has turn into clear through the years – and is additional illuminated by this programme – that Clark is an especially sensible and proficient man who shouldn’t be underestimated.

The connection between Rinder and Clark proves surprisingly candy and tender, too. Though they typically fall again into the intelligent one/foolish one shtick, they appear to carry one another in equally excessive regard. Clark has little ego across the gaps in his information and soaks up what Rinder tells him concerning the historic significance of the locations that they go to. Rinder additionally gazes at him adoringly when Clark interprets what the Botticellis hanging within the Uffizi or the Venetian masks worn through the carnival symbolise to him.

Whereas Rinder and Clark appear fairly reworked by their journey and time collectively, ending the journey with their hearts rather less damaged and open to the potential for discovering love once more (albeit with an iron-clad prenup), what’s most fascinating concerning the programme is the way it challenges our notion of Clark. For hundreds of years, the Grand Tour was undertaken by those that extra carefully resembled Rinder, folks with the appropriate form of class and training, in contrast to Clark, who was a “ginger child from a council flat in Stepney Inexperienced”. However it’s beautiful to behold the place that child has ended up, see his formidable thoughts take in the glories of the journey Byron as soon as launched into and watch his confidence bloom within the Italian sunshine.