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Joanna Lumley Travel Shows

BBC Select is the place to watch Joanna Lumley travel shows. Join the much-loved British actor turned guide as she visits new and familiar locations, including India, the country of her birth, the Northern Lights, a dream destination, and the mystical islands of Japan.

Watch Joanna Lumley travel series on BBC Select. Start your free trial of BBC Select with any of the streaming platforms listed below. Free trial restrictions apply*.

Joanna Lumley’s Hidden Caribbean

Get ready for sun, sea and samba as Joanna Lumley jets off to uncover the Caribbean’s mysterious, exotic secrets. In this illuminating travel documentary on BBC Select, Joanna travels across two of the most enigmatic countries in the region: Cuba and Haiti. She experiences voodoo, boxing, rum, rhumba, and hidden hotspots that tourists rarely get to explore.

Joanna Lumley in the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon

Bhutan, the beautiful land-locked nation in the Eastern Himalayas, has always been steeped in mystery. In this revealing BBC travel documentary, Joanna Lumley retraces the steps her grandparents took in the country 60 years before. Through her eyes, a world which challenges accepted ideas of wealth and happiness is explored. But what family secrets will Joanna uncover?

Joanna Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights

Watch Joanna Lumley In the Land of the Northern Lights  on BBC Select today. Restrictions apply*.

Joanna Lumley’s Japan

Travelling Japan by boat, train, plane and foot, British actor and activist Joanna Lumley (The Wolf of Wall Street, Absolutely Fabulous) turns travel reporter to explore the uncharted corners of the country’s 6,800 mystical islands. From rustic mountains to sprawling super-cities, this epic journey takes her across a beautiful and perplexing country of extremes – with a population to match.

Watch Joanna Lumley’s Japan on BBC Select today. Restrictions apply*.

Joanna Lumley: The Quest For Noah’s Ark

Noah’s Ark and the catastrophic flood is one of mankind’s oldest tales – a story that has great meaning to Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths. BBC Select presents this documentary in which Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley goes behind the scenes of the British Museum and travels from a small UK village church, to Turkey, India and Oman to discover more about the truth surrounding the tale.

Watch Joanna Lumley: The Quest for Noah’s Ark on BBC Select today. Restrictions apply*.

Joanna Lumley’s India

A year older than Independent India itself, Joanna Lumley travels back to the country of her birth and celebrates the great nation that it is today. Exploring India’s beauty, culture and history, her journey takes her on an exploration of India’s past, present and future. She experiences the mind-blowing mix of industry, imagination and humanity that the world’s largest democracy has to offer.

Watch Joanna Lumley’s India on BBC Select today. Restrictions apply*.

Jennifer & Joanna: Absolutely Champers

Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders are two of Britain’s best-loved comedy icons. In classic sit-com Absolutely Fabulous, their alter egos loved nothing more than cracking open a bottle of bubbly. Now, Joanna and Jennifer are reuniting as BBC Select joins them for a road trip to France’s Champagne region. But will Eddie and Patsy finally discover how the bubbles get into their ‘Bolly’, sweetie?

Watch Jennifer and Joanna: Absolutely Champers on BBC Select today. Restrictions apply*.

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Race Across the World review: Return of BBC smash proves travel is best without a smartphone

The hit bbc travel-adventure show returns for its fourth series, and is best understood as being like tourism but in a more intense, concentrated and indeed exhausting form, article bookmarked.

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I have to admit that I find travel so exhausting that I’m at a loss as to why anyone would willingly watch an episode of Race Across the World , let alone have the stamina to keep up with the whole nine hours of viewing that lies before us.

Having tagged along vicariously for the first leg of their journey, north to south across most of Japan, Race is best understood as being like tourism but in a more intense, condensed, concentrated and indeed exhausting form. The five pairs of contestants, ranging from annoying siblings barely in their twenties to a reassuringly mellow couple in their sixties, are tasked with travelling from snowy Sapporo in northern Japan down to the paradise island of Lombok in Indonesia, via various waypoints in Korea, Cambodia and Malaysia – some 15,000 kilometres in total.

Just like any backpacking holiday, the idea is that you move as fast as possible for the least cost (the budget is fixed at £1,390, the price of two air tickets from Japan to Indonesia), and in order to make the best of the adventure try and squeeze in some sightseeing, local culture and pick up a bit of casual work along the way to pay the bills. So it is a race, in the sense that you want to get to the checkpoints and to Lombok first, and win the £20,000 prize money, but to do it within budget and with some actual pleasure along the way. It’s all about balancing these priorities, and that essential nuance gives the show its charm. The only forms of transport that are banned are planes and the ultra-fast Japanese bullet trains, which would spoil the vibe. They should probably call it “The Sort-of Race Across the World”, if accuracy is the thing.

This, therefore, isn’t a full-on scramble, like some version of Challenge Anneka or a leisurely, carefree Portillo-esque travelogue , but one where the contestants have to find a more optimal vacation balance. It was interesting that the winners on this first Japanese leg are Eugenie and Isabel, a mother and daughter who took a pretty long detour to see the isolated, tranquil and lovely offshore island of Sado, on the “wrong” coast from the point of view of sheer speed. It’s so off the beaten track, even for the Japanese, that it was once used as a place of exile for out of favour politicians and the like.

Yet they still arrived, after five days on the road and having missed a connection, two minutes before twins Alfie and Owen, who just about managed to squeeze in a glimpse of Mount Fuji along their supposedly efficient but actually overly panicky and rushed route. It seems that Isabel’s impressive attempt to get a random Japanese boy to teach her the language on a long bus ride paid off; public signage makes little concession to the foreigner, and the universally friendly citizenry speak surprisingly little English. Our contestants don’t remark on it, but Japanese society is an evidently self-sufficient affair, something visitors always find a novelty.

Stephen and Ivy, the retired couple, aren’t that bothered about coming first, and took their opportunity to tarry at a wasabi farm, pulling up roots, burning their mouths off and cadging a useful lift. Maybe it was something about the famous sauce, but Ivy unloaded how “unintentionally offensive” her husband of many years is, just as he’s asking his hosts how old they all are: “Some have learned to tolerate him, but I love him”. Touching.

What’s also striking about Race Across the World , and something sadly impractical in the “real” world away from reality TV, is how much richer the travel experience of all those involved is because they are deprived, under the rules of the show, of their smartphones. They end up exploring their relationships with their journey partners as much as the picturesque countryside and bustling cities.

The young siblings from Yorkshire, Betty and James, for example, seem to be getting to know each other for the first time on Japanese trains and in random cafes, despite having grown up together. Something similar is also true of the two sets of mum and daughter: Eugenie and Isabel, and Sharon and Brydie. Thrown together and almost forced to talk to one another rather than scrolling through social media, their personal odyssey acquires an emotional and, around the Buddhist shrines, a spiritual dimension. As noted by young James, an unimaginative traveller by his own admission, you don’t get that with a week “having it off in Ayia Napa”. A different kind of pursuit, that.

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Why are Michael Palin documentaries not on the BBC anymore?

The monty python star has been making travel documentaries for decades.

Michael Palin will soon be returning with a new travel documentary series, Michael Palin in Nigeria , which continues his partnership with ITN and Channel 5 .

The Monty Python star found a second wave in his career when he began fronting travel documentaries, but the comedian's work in the field first began with the BBC . Palin embarked on his first foray into travel writing and documentary filmmaking with the 1989 series Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin, but since then things have changed.

Some viewers may be wondering why Palin swapped the BBC for Channel 5, here is everything that we know about the move.

Palin first began making travel documentaries in 1989, and his work with the BBC saw him collaborating on a number of programmes until 2012. This included his journey from the North to the South Pole in Pole to Pole with Michael Palin, and retracing the footsteps of writer Ernest Hemingway across the US, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean for Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure.

Read More: Michael Palin still talks to his late wife

All in all, Palin fronted eight programmes with the BBC and his collaboration with the channel came to an end with the 2012 series Brazil with Michael Palin.

His time with the BBC had its ups and downs, in 2009 Palin said he felt "very let down" by the BBC's response to his 2007 documentary New Europe. The programme was censured by the BBC Trust, who concluded Palin had oversimplified the conflict of the Balkan wars in the 1990s after a complaint was made by a viewer.

Speaking at a lunch for the Royal Television Society years after the programme was released, the Guardian reported Palin as saying: "The complaint was upheld. That, I believe, brings the BBC into disrepute. I think it was a stupid decision. I felt very, very angry and very let down."

New Europe was followed up by his aforementioned 2012 series about Brazil. While he didn't make anymore travelogue type shows for the channel, Palin did return to the BBC to front the show Travels Of A Lifetime in which he looked back at the documentaries he had made over the years.

In 2021, Palin spoke plainly about the BBC's future when he spoke to Jeremy Paxman on his podcast The Lock In , saying: "I am worried about the BBC because I believe the BBC to be one of the most important institutions in the country. An institution, having travelled the world, it is usually admired wherever I go — but I can see times are changing."

The actor took a break from making travel documentaries after Brazil with Michael Palin, returning in 2018 with his new collaborative partners ITN for the series Michael Palin in North Korea which aired on Channel 5. The show saw him film with a crew in North Korea during the April 2018 inter-Korean summit, it was the first time viewers were able to see so much of the country on camera.

When the series was first commissioned, Guy Davies, Channel 5 Factual Commissioning Editor, said: "Michael Palin is the best travel presenter of his generation, and for him to make his first series for Channel 5 with such a timely and extraordinary journey is thrilling. His natural curiosity and sensitivity make him the ideal person to visit and discover North Korea, and meet the people who have been hidden from the world for so long."

The series was a huge critical success, and he soon followed it up with the 2022 series Michael Palin: Into Iraq which drew in 2.5million viewers and won a prestigious AIB award. Channel 5 and ITN was keen to continue their collaboration with Palin, and why not after the success of their two earlier programmes.

Palin's new series will see him visit Nigeria, where he will explore the history and culture of the country, and its growing impact as a world leader. The documentary will see him visit the Islamic North and go on a road trip across the country with an armed guard.

Speaking about the programme, Palin shared: "Nigeria has the biggest economy, and the biggest population in Africa. The potential of the country is enormous, but so are its problems. Visiting the country for the first time, I saw these problems at first hand, but also caught a whiff of the excitement and energy of the place.

"Sometimes inspiring, sometimes a perplexing challenge, my journey through this rich, raucous mix of a country hardly gave me time to draw breath. I came home exhausted but exhilarated. And, as in the best of journeys, feeling I know a lot more about the world."

Michael Palin in Nigeria airs on Channel 5 at 9pm on Tuesday, 16 April.

Watch the trailer for Michael Palin in Nigeria:

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What is cloud seeding and did it cause record rainfall in Dubai?

Huge downpours which caused widespread disruption in the United Arab Emirates city have been attributed to a process that encourages rainfall - here we take a look at what the experts have said.

Wednesday 17 April 2024 21:37, UK

A record amount of rainfall was said to have caused "absolute carnage" in Dubai on Tuesday - with schools closed, flights suspended and people working from home.

More than 14cm (5.6 inches) of rain soaked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) city on Tuesday - the heaviest rainfall there since records began in 1949, the state-run WAM news agency said.

As people in Dubai continue to face disruption due to the downpours, some have suggested the rain could have been caused by a practice carried out by humans known as "cloud seeding".

Here we take a look at what the process involves and whether it was responsible for Dubai's wet Tuesday.

What is cloud seeding?

The practice is a type of weather modification process whereby small planes fly through clouds burning salt flares which can increase precipitation to help make it rain.

The UAE, located in one of the hottest and driest regions on Earth, has been leading the effort to seed clouds and increase precipitation.

Did cloud seeding cause the storm?

Following the downpour , several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Centre for Meteorology, the UAE's meteorology agency, as saying they flew six or seven cloud seeding flights before the rain.

Flight-tracking data showed that one aircraft linked to the UAE's cloud seeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday.

However, the meteorology agency told Reuters news agency there were no such operations before the storm.

It comes as a number of experts have also said it is unlikely the downpours would have been caused by cloud seeding.

What have the experts said?

Sky News weather producer Chris England said he doubted cloud seeding contributed to the downpour, as the evidence of the practice working is "pretty slim at best".

He added: "Some studies have indicated climate change will bring an increase in rainfall to the area."

Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, also said it was misleading to talk about cloud seeding as the cause of the rainfall.

"Cloud seeding can't create clouds from nothing. It encourages water that is already in the sky to condense faster and drop water in certain places. So first, you need moisture," she said.

"Without it, there'd be no clouds."

Update: TOWIE stars stranded by floods forced to hitchhike

Ms Otto added that rainfall was becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.

Professor John Marsham, Met Office joint chair at the University of Leeds, said speculation around cloud seeding is a "distraction from the real story here".

"We know that man-made climate increases extreme rainfall - this is well understood physics as warm air holds more water.

"A rainfall event such as the one that caused the Dubai floods, which covered a large area and where over Dubai a year's worth of rain fell in one day, cannot happen without large-scale weather conditions driving enormous convergence of water vapour in the atmosphere and so extreme rainfall.

"Any possible effect of any cloud seeding in these circumstances would be tiny."

Professor Maarten Ambaum, a meteorologist at the University of Reading who has studied rainfall patterns in the Gulf region, said: "The UAE does have an operational cloud seeding programme to enhance the rainfall in this arid part of the world, however, there is no technology in existence that can create or even severely modify this kind of rainfall event."

Read more from Sky News What missiles could Israel use in an attack? Shannon Matthews' kidnapper dies Scotland set to scrap key climate targets

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If it wasn't cloud seeding - what did cause the storm?

Prof Ambaum said the UAE is characterised by long periods without rain and then "irregular, heavy rainfall".

He added: "These storms appear to be the result of a mesoscale convective system - a series of medium-sized thunderstorms caused by massive thunderclouds, formed as heat draws moisture up into the atmosphere. These can create large amounts of rain, and when they occur over a wide area and one after another, can lead to seriously heavy downpours. They can rapidly lead to surface water floods, as we have seen in places such as Dubai airport."

Meanwhile, climate scientists say that rising global temperatures, caused by human-led climate change, are leading to more extreme weather events around the world, including intense rainfall.

Esraa Alnaqbi, a senior forecaster at the UAE's National Centre of Meteorology, has said climate change likely contributed to the storm.

She said the Dubai downpour came after a low pressure system in the upper atmosphere and low pressure at the surface acted like a pressure "squeeze" on the air.

That squeeze, intensified by the contrast between warmer temperatures at ground level and colder temperatures higher up, created the conditions for the powerful thunderstorm, she said.

Related Topics

• climate change