Great Continental Railway Journeys
SERIES 3 - 1. TULA TO ST PETERSBURG
BBC Two Wed 5th Nov 9pm - 9:59pm
Repeat: BBC Two (only England, Wales) Mon 10 Nov 11:15pm
Repeat: BBC Two Scotland Mon 10 Nov 11:45pm
Review by: Alison GrahamA very flirtatious Italian lady grabs Michael Portillo’s hand as he charms his way through a train bound for St Petersburg on the latest leg of his Bradshaw-guided journeys. “You’re gorgeous!” she tells him excitedly, in Italian.
Admittedly, Portillo cuts a dashing figure with his multicoloured wardrobe – at one point he sports an eye-burning combo of lemon-yellow jacket and red trousers. He’s a bit of a polyglot, too, flirting back to the lady in Italian and chatting his way around Russia, even introducing himself to old ladies on the Moscow underground, in Russian.
It’s all part of a new trip into the past, as Portillo looks at the role played by the railways in the birth of the Russian Revolution.
These jaunts are always fun, if you don’t suffer psychological trauma watching a half-naked Portillo in a Moscow bathhouse being lashed with birch twigs and pummelled by a masseur.
ABOUT THIS PROGRAMME
1/6. Michael Portillo ventures once more on to the European rail network to retrace journeys featured in George Bradshaw's 1913 publication Continental Guide, beginning by travelling through Russia. He starts in the industrial city of Tula, before visiting Leo Tolstoy's former home of Yasnaya Polyana and learning how the author's life and works were intertwined with the railways. Michael then boards the train that runs from the Caspian Sea to Moscow, where he performs an important role in a dramatic opera at the Bolshoi Theatre, before exploring the beauty and history of St Petersburg and riding on the first railway ever built in Russia.
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