Into the Congo with Ben Fogle, Channel 5, review: still miles ahead of his travelogue competitors

Ben Fogle with the Mbendjele BaYaka tribe – Channel 5

TV shows these days can sound like a game of “would you rather”. How would you prefer to spend a week: Lost in Alaska with Sue Perkins? Extreme Fishing with Robson Green? Or Into the Congo with Ben Fogle? The last one is a new three-part series on Channel 5. I’d choose Fogle’s company every time. Apart from anything else, he has such lovely manners.

Here he is in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, being offered some sort of deep-fried grub – the sort of thing that has people retching on I’m a Celebrity. Fogle doesn’t flinch and immediately searches for something positive to say, which turns out to be: “It tastes quite cheesy!”

In the rainforest, staying with the Mbendjele tribe, he is the perfect houseguest, helping with the chores and complimenting his hosts on their cooking and the comfort level of his tent. This is definitely a man who would load your dishwasher after a dinner party and send you a thank you note the next day saying that your profiteroles were divine.

I am so tired of seeing celebrity presenters go through the motions on travel shows – visiting all the obvious places, most likely retreating to a comfortable hotel when the cameras stop rolling each day – that it made a refreshing change to see Fogle exploring a little-known (in TV terms) part of the world and introducing us to people whose way of life is so far removed from our own.

The Mbendjele welcomed him in an extraordinary way, 100 tribespeople singing and dancing to greet his arrival. He appeared genuinely overwhelmed. “My body is flooded with emotions right now. It’s the most astonishing welcome I’ve ever had.” Fogle is good when speaking from the heart like this, less so when saying the sorts of things he thinks travel presenters should say.

In the capital he made reference to the “riot of colour” and the “assault on the senses”, which are the standard descriptors for anywhere beyond Europe, and which lost all power when the cameras panned around to capture a street market with less colour and bustle than the one selling artisan doughnuts outside Kings Cross station.

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