I occasionally talk about books here (there’s new a post coming up next week!) and once in a blue moon I’ll do TV, if it’s Iceland or Norway-related. But this is the first time I’ve talked about YouTube. Ed Venturing was supposed to be a “video podcast” but it’s not, it’s a YouTube series and it lands here as an outdoors lockdown favourite.
You may know I’m a big fan of stand up comedy. It’s an industry that’s been absolutely decimated by the plague and while it’s pressed on bravely, Zoom gigs and drive-ins can’t replace the real thing, not by a long way. So my favourite hillwalking comedian, Ed Byrne, has used this time of enforced unemployment to retrain as a YouTuber and he’s made four videos – so far – in which he walks up a hill while interviewing a friend. In “season one” (he’s not calling it that but I am) we’ve had Rhod Gilbert in Pembrokeshire, Stuart Maconie in the Lake District, Desiree Burch in the South Downs and Hal Cruttenden in the Peak District (all filmed last October between lockdowns, by the way).
They all take much the same format: chat while climbing the hill, stop and sit down somewhere partway up, preferably with a good view, and discuss when, where and how the guest got started in their career, chat while climbing to the summit and then discuss career highlights. I use the word “interview” more lightly than Ed does, I think – it’s still a chat, still a conversation, still very informal but guided by questions and a certain amount of reminiscing. Three of the four guests are comedians and regardless of when they started out, they’re going to have played the same clubs and worked with the same people and had some of the same heroes and in a way, this is the water cooler catchup for people who haven’t seen their colleagues for nearly a year.
Of the two interview segments, I think I prefer the career highlights one, just for how the British nature forces an “oh… I don’t know, I couldn’t say” rather than a ready and proud list of accomplishments & achievements. And although Ed’s on the cusp of being better known for hillwalking than for comedy and was always going to do something hillwalking-related eventually and this series wouldn’t exist without the hills, it’s not a coincidence or accident that the highlights conversation takes place on the summit, looking down at how far they’ve come and looking around at where there is still to go. On the other hand, the origin story interview segment flows so much more easily and naturally because it doesn’t have that wall to break through and it does sound a bit like my Christmases at the pub with “The Old Gang” where we talk about everything that happened at school. I mean that in a good way, it’s people chatting happily without any of the awkwardness or contrivance or stiltedness that can sometimes come across in interviews.
When Ed first talked about Ed Venturing – or Ed Ventures, as it was right up until the first episode was out – I assumed it would be two people and a camera, maybe even just a phone. In fact, there’s a small production company behind it. There’s a main camera operated by Renaissance man, producer, director, presenter, actor & comedian Barry Castagnola, usually walking up the hill backwards, there’s a second camera and a drone, there’s an editor and there’s even a Summit Theme that I assume has been created specially for this series. A couple of them have been taken down and reuploaded after sound issues and although the Peak District lighting is spectacular, the colours look a bit odd to me in places. But other than that, it’s a much more professional and slick production than I expected.
Ed Venturing has been a wonderful thing to watch during a winter lockdown. Some comedy, some chatting, some incredible views. It makes me want to go out for a walk and it specifically makes me want to go to Dartmoor, maybe even film my walk. Because that’s not practical right now, I’ve settled for making Reels of some of my recent local countryside walks as practice. New episodes tend to get released very early in the morning – or very late at night – and it’s been good to know there’s something funny and beautiful to watch after work, although sometimes I’ve given in and watched one of them while doing something particularly repetitive where I don’t need my mind to be on my work.
I suppose the “need” for them will fade now. Real live comedy is starting to come back, most comedians I’ve had tickets for will be back touring in the autumn and once we can really get out and about again on long warm summer days, watching other people hillwalking on the screens we’ve been stuck to for over a year will drop down our priority lists. All the same, I hope this continues. Obviously, Dartmoor and the South West Coast Path are kind of my stomping grounds so I’d like to see episodes there. Ed loves Scotland so I’d like to see episodes there. The comments are full of suggestions for future guests and of course, if BBC4, or even BBC2, would like to commission a new chat show, COVID-safe, where interviewer and interviewee are out in the fresh air, this is a great pilot for it.
So, in summary, if you’re after something really pretty to watch while you’re stuck at home, with scenery and friends and comedy, go and watch Ed Venturing.