Take a trip to Florida, with its wild characters — and Vince Vaughn

“Have you ever been to Florida? It’s basically a prison population. It’s America’s Australia.”
These are the words of 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy. I don’t think he liked the place. Central Florida? “Dominated by Jewish retirees, serial killers and secretly gay Disney princes.” Northern Florida? “A combination of elderly shut-ins, beach bums, bus passengers…”
Mind you, Jack once reversed his car over his mother and didn’t call for help for eight minutes — in Florida.
Despite those characterisations — or perhaps because of them — I have a soft spot for Florida. TV companies do too, though rarely enough to make programmes there (Golden Girls and Dexter excluded).
So, as a devoted fan of the Floridian caper-writer Carl Hiaasen, I had some qualms about Apple TV+’s adaptation of his novel Bad Monkey. How well would his creation translate to the screen, populated as it is with the sort of outlandish people you love to encounter on the page but would never want to meet? Would they shoot the whole thing on the cheap in Vancouver and cover their tracks with digital genius?
I braced for disappointment but they’ve nailed it. Bad Monkey is all shot in Florida. You can see it, feel it and I swear you can smell it. This isn’t ideal when the entire plot revolves around a severed arm with its middle finger extended, recovered from the sea. It’s kept in ice for much of the first episode but Vince Vaughn’s ex-detective Andrew Yancy thinks it’s beginning to stink. The show doesn’t. It’s Hiaasen, so you know the romping plot will succeed, but the producers have cracked how to bring the Florida freaks alive — put the next episode on autoplay. Only one niggle: the narrator has seen too much of Roy Walker’s Catchphrase and frequently says what we see. Just let the actors act.
• Carl Hiaasen’s Bad Monkey and six more of my favourite comic crime novels
Vaughn has a great vehicle here, and if you miss Bruce Willis on screen, as we all do, there are moments Vaughn is a convincing lookie-likie, only with a bit more hair.
I generally feel about reality shows the way Jack Donaghy does about Florida. This is not snobbishness. I was an early adopter of Big Brother, Love Island and many more, and kept watching long after the viewing figures dropped. Too many similar formats, brilliantly made but wearily familiar. Impress me, please.
Celebrity Race Across the World (BBC1, Wed) tries its best. Four teams of two set off from a location in the far north of Brazil aiming to arrive 7,800 miles away in the Andes with only a few quid, no mobile phones and a camera crew. Among the contestants is Freddie Brazier, son of the Big Brother alumnus Jade Goody and brother of the EastEnders actor turned Strictly star Bobby, hoping to forge a deeper relationship with his dad, Jeff.
One of the stars of Ted Lasso, Kola Bokinni — a “kid from Peckham” — tells us he has two managers, two agents and a publicist. None of them has warned him not to spend a fortune getting a taxi from the middle of nowhere to the outskirts of nowhere. Scott Mills and his husband, Sam, are there on a honeymoon. And then there is Kelly Brook and her husband, Jeremy Parisi.
I tend to avoid reality telly because while I don’t mind being manipulated by the producers, the reality can seem unreal. In the case of Race, can I suspend disbelief and buy into the idea that these celebs are really up against it? I don’t want them to suffer, exactly, but maybe sweat a little. Not danger but a bit of jeopardy. Real jeopardy, not the reality TV kind. Am I sure that when the cameras are off they’re not checking into the Four Seasons?
Halfway through I realise it’s best just to put aside my doubts and go with it — like a tired jury on a Friday afternoon. The producers chose well. Brook, for example, tells the camera: “Kelly Brook doesn’t exist.” I would willingly pay the licence fee just for the moment her husband informs her they’re about to get on a bus for 14 hours. Kenneth Williams never pulled a more shocked expression. For fun, it’s up there with Freddie befriending a chicken, and Sam, craving a cafe con leche but struggling with Portuguese, bellowing at a barista: “Mooooooo!”
My aforementioned antipathy to “reality” means that I missed Freddie Flintoff’s original Field of Dreams, in which he returned to his home town of Preston to encourage local lads to get excited about cricket. A new series reunites many of them for the surprise of a tour.
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour (BBC1, Tue) is reality that feels like reality. Told they’ll be going abroad, the teenagers respond, “Benidorm?” and “Are we flying business class?” When the destination is revealed one asks: “Where actually is India?”
All ripping fun until 23 minutes in, when we encounter the danger and suffering endured by Flintoff in an accident while filming Top Gear. I can still see his lacerated face struggling to talk to us from his hospital bed, months after the crash.
• Freddie Flintoff suffered anxiety and nightmares after Top Gear crash
The India trip is delayed, not cancelled. Flintoff was already an impressive figure but his determination and self-effacement are inspiring. He alludes to his anxiety, flashbacks and nightmares, but his focus is on getting his lads to India.
As the innocents prepare for abroad, one searches online for pizzerias in India. Another wonders if he can take frozen potato waffles with him.
Amid the swearing, joshing and laughter, there is tenderness. Flintoff and the young men frequently refer to each other as family. He consoles and encourages his more anxious players. The lads’ trip to a food market in search of dinner ingredients is the funniest thing I see all week, apart from Kelly Brook’s bus face.
Flintoff wants to make his lads the stars of the show but really it’s him. Whatever physical and mental scars he carries, his heart and soul are unscathed.
Camilla Long is away
What have you enjoyed on television recently? Let us know in the comments below