‘If my mum told me we were going caravanning, I’d call Childline’. Not my words, the words of Will from The Inbetweeners.
Still, this single line perhaps best sums up TV’s attitude towards visiting a caravan park.
Indeed, the grand tradition of caravanning has been the butt of a joke for years now, thanks to shows like Top Gear and Alan Partridge, which have played up the ‘tragedy’ of having to live in a caravan.
Yet one of the UK’s greatest entertainment dynasties is on a mission to prove that there’s nothing sad about this particularly British pastime.
Danny and Dani Dyer are investing their time (and cash) into a caravan park for a new TV series – The Dyers’ Caravan Park – in the hopes of saving the Great British holiday.
Can the Dyers do it? Well, as someone who went on family caravan holidays as a kid, I was sceptical.
So when I was dispatched by my editor to Priory Hill and Nutts Farm Holiday Parks on the Isle of Sheppey to watch Danny and Dani film their show, I’d be lying if I said I was excited.
Well, it turns out I may have misjudged caravanning, or at least I should have had faith in the Dyers’ charisma.
From the moment my fellow journos and I sat down in the park’s clubhouse bar on a sunny summer’s day, Danny was giving us all barrels of his Cockney charm.
‘Why are you not on the Cruzcampo?’ he grinned through his 80s pornstache (Danny was also filming Rivals when we met him) as he wandered by our table, before joking that we’re at a holiday camp and that means we should be on the beers.
Just as soon as he came, however, he was called away, off to clean a pool filter or, as he so eloquently put it, he’s ‘elbow deep in pubic hair’.
It was a meeting that set the tone of the trip and indeed the show. Danny’s part fun showman (or pint police in this case), part hardworking handyman.
I wasn’t the only one charmed by Danny, as we were shown around the site by Darren, the site manager.
As he took us on a winding tour between chalets and caravans, he told us that both the Dyers had been hard at work to make the site a success.
Most notable was that the Dyers had performed a minor miracle in getting a playground built, a process Darren said had been a ‘nightmare’ of red tape.
Admittedly, though, Danny admits he could get a bit enthusiastic (and generous) when it comes to his new business venture.
‘I’ve spent a lot of money on this caravan site,’ Danny explained when we sat down with him in the conservatory, where we were told an amazing lasagne is served.
‘I do need Dani to rein me in sometimes because some of my suggestions have been fucking ridiculous,’ he laughed.
How ridiculous? Well, Danny tried to spend £250,000 on a playground.
‘Dani convinced me to get the cheapest one, which was still £20,000,’ he continued. ‘I was going to turn this place into f*cking Centre Parks.’
If you’re thinking this formula of dropping a rich celebrity into a business and watching the chaos that ensues sounds familiar, then you’d be right.
The show shares a few ingredients with Clarkson’s Farm, and it’s something the Dyers are happy to acknowledge (they even mention Jeremy in the series intro), but Danny’s clear there’s one big difference.
‘I know the Clarkson’s Farm has been a very successful thing,’ he explained. ‘But the difference, I suppose, is that it’s his land, it’s his farm, it’s his house.
‘I’m coming into somebody else’s business, somebody’s family business that’s been run by the same family for fifty years. I didn’t want to come in here and tread on anyone’s toes.’
‘You don’t want to tread on their toes,’ Dani cut in. ‘But you just want to add something different. You want to leave something behind. We’ve added most of the things that residents wanted.
‘We’ve had some great nights, had people come down, had karaoke nights. I feel like we have put a lot of smiles on people’s faces, and that’s what we’ve wanted to do. We’ve wanted to come here and give people a good summer.’
Of course, the Dyers also want to put smiles on viewers’ faces, and Danny admitted he’s already made a few mistakes that will entertain viewers even if they didn’t please the site’s owners.
‘I did design a billboard that was on the side of the Isle of Sheppey Bridge, and you’ll learn when you watch the show, it ended up being defaced,’ Danny sighed.
‘Someone drew a c*ck on me, well, more of a ch*de. So, we learned the hard way that the manager wasn’t really happy about the billboard.’
The manager wasn’t the only person the Dyers annoyed. The pair failed to turn up to the opening day of the site after a wild night at the Brit Awards.
‘You’ll see it in the first episode, a couple of people were p*ssed off that I didn’t actually open the gate, because there’s a moment when you open the gates at the beginning of the season and I wasn’t here,’ Danny said as he explained this led to some resistance.
Still, through hard graft, a revived sports day, and … yes, cleaning pubes out of a pool filter, the Dyers have won the campsite around.
All day as we wandered the site, we were told by staff and residents what a change the Dyers had made and how happy they were.
So maybe it was the good weather, maybe it was the smell of the sea, perhaps it was the fact I got a free coffee, but from the moment I arrived, I liked Priory Hill.
Can the Dyers save the Great British holiday? I don’t know. But I do know I wouldn’t be calling Childline if someone invited me here again.
I’d crack out my best shorts, pour myself a pint of Cruzcampo and get stuck in.
The Dyers’ Caravan Park launches on 24 February on Sky and NOW.
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