Escape to the Country

They have a nice view in there.

And I once-- I was filming Escape To The Country, and I said to somebody about the cloakroom, and they went, "What's a cloakroom?" And I went, "It's a posh way of saying a toilet."

[laughs]

So, um...

Ran, you said that you found this house on-

Yes

... okay, there's so much detail I wanna talk about inside the house, but you, you found the house on Escape to the Country, on the TV show.

Yes, yes.

That's probably why she got married for the first time, because she wanted to be married to somebody called Gary, who was a photographer or worked in media, and was shooting hoops in the backyard whilst grilling stuff on a barbecue and wearing sweatpants and looking really cool.

That didn't work out so well, so she then started watching Escape to the Country, A New Home in the Sun, et cetera, et cetera.

And all those kind of programs which at the time used to feature presenters skipping round derelict farmhouses in high heels saying things like, "Ooh, and for another 5,000 pounds you could turn this derelict barn into some wheelchair-friendly gîtes." And then you'd see Bob and Belinda from Birmingham saying, "Oh, I could just fancy seeing myself sitting on this terrace with my morning tea." Sorry, that was a shit Birmingham accent but, you know, you get the drift.

Anybody that watched those programs and fell for their clap trap back in the day will know what I'm talking about.

And today on the show, I want to start by saying, fuck planet Earth.

Not the place that we live, but the TV show Planet Earth, because I was watching it recently, and you know what that show has? way too much wildlife footage, okay? I don't want to see a blue whale, all right? It's too big.

It's all wet.

It's got weird teeth.

What I want to see is a fox in a back garden in Sheffield, all right? In fact, not even that.

What I want is live footage of a mound of dirt where a fox was three hours ago.

And if you agree with me, you're going to love our topic today, which is the live nature TV show, Springwatch.

I'm Charlotte McDonald, and I'm usually joined by my wonderful co-host Libby Watson.

[upbeat music] If you know your motorsport, you will know today's guest.

Even if you don't know your motorsport, you'll probably have seen her from anything from The Gadget Show to Escape to the Country.

She was the first-ever female lead presenter on Formula E. She's also a Formula 1 presenter and a mum of three.

All around wonder woman, it's Nikki Shields.

... career.

Oh my God, that's so funny.

On Escape to the Country.

Yeah.