Visit Hadrian’s Wall with Robson Green?

You have to hand it to Britain’s celebrities. When it seemed like Covid-19 would hamper their attempts to film travel documentaries, many of them found a way to carry on by simply sticking closer to home.

The West Country has proved a particularly popular destination. Last year, we got Cornwall With Simon Reeve, while this week alone we can also see Rick Stein’s Cornwall on BBC2 and Cornwall and Devon Walks with Julia Bradbury on ITV (Susan Calman was also there last week for one of her Big Days Out).

Now another famous face is joining the list of celebs who have decided to go exploring in the UK but he’s heading further north with his new series Hadrian’s Wall with Robson Green.

The actor hails from Hexham in Northumberland and has made programmes about his home county before, including Tales from Northumberland for ITV. However, this new show will still be a bit of a new experience from him, even if he does have plenty of local knowledge,

Elspeth O’Hare, Creative Director of production company Firecracker Scotland said: “We are delighted to be working with Robson on this series. Although he has never walked the wall before, it cuts through his hometown and the area where he grew up. He will bring such warmth and humour to this iconic journey.”

The wall is the longest Roman site in the world, and Robson is about to trek its 73 miles coast-to-coast, from Wallsend in the east to the isolated Cumbrian village of Bowness in the west.

Across three episodes, he’ll be treading in ancient footsteps, but he’ll also be meeting some local characters who are still very much with us. He’ll find time to visit nearby landmarks and take in the dramatic landscapes along the way.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Robson has risen to the challenge of making TV during the pandemic, as his career has proved he’s nothing if not adaptable. He’s probably best known as an actor – his credits include Casualty, Soldier Soldier and more recently Grantchester.

However, he also had a very successful foray into music with his Soldier Soldier co-star Jerome Flynn – they had number ones with their versions of Unchained Melody, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted and I Believe.

He’s also branched out into presenting with a string of fishing-related series, which have taken him around the world. But it seems wherever Robson goes, he tends to get recognised, particularly by Grantchester fans.

He once said that the strangest place he has even been spotted was: “A glacier in Alaska. I was filming something out there and we needed the huskies and the sledge to do the piece to camera. It was busy with American tourists, and as they got off the sledge, they went, ‘Oh my god, it’s Geordie!’ It was incredible. And bonkers – there was about 10 of them!”

So, he’s bound to get noticed along Hadrian’s Wall.

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