What can I tell you about Stephen Mulhern? He’s an ITV presenter (Dancing on Ice, Deal or No Deal, You Bet), magician, longtime friend of Ant and Dec, he’s never had hummus or tasted a prawn, and he’s only recently been introduced to ham. “I like what I like,” he says simply, when Ant (or Dec – I never did have them straight in my mind and it’s honestly too late to start now) asks him how it is possible to have avoided ham for 47 years.
“He’s odd,” says Dec (maybe – see above) fondly. “He’s an odd man.” “Sheltered,” supplements Ant. “Set in his ways.”
In fact, as rapidly becomes clear, it is something deeper than that. Stephen is not stubborn, narrow-minded or, in his aversion to travel, xenophobic. He is phobic in the true sense of the word: irrationally frightened of certain things. “I’m frightened of food, I’m scared of strange places, I’ve got a fear of heights and I’m terrified of the sea.” A friend of his, he tells Ant and Dec, went bungee jumping “and two weeks later all his hair fell out”. In life, you cannot, Mulhern feels, be too careful. He loves swimming, but only in a pool, where the water is clean and you can see that there is nothing coming to grab your feet. There is obviously some germ phobia in the mix, too – he is horrified by the idea of people double-dipping their crisps in a … well, dip (“You’ve swapped bodily fluids”) – and nor does he like needles, being naked or hearing people chew. Many, if not all of which, most of us will entirely understand, but his antipathies exist at extremes. He wants things to be different. “I find my phobias so frustrating,” he says.
The premise of Accidental Tourist is that Ant and Dec are sending their pal off on a trip to Korea (a place, of course, that Stephen has never been nor dreamed of going to) to face all his fears and, hopefully, overcome them. “I hope it’s a different Stephen coming back,” Mulhern says. He imagines his dad, who died very recently, hearing about his plans. “He wouldn’t believe it. I hope he’d be proud.” The tears come, and again when he reads a letter from his mum, Holly, when he’s alone in his Korean bedroom, encouraging him to be brave and assuring him of his parents’ love for him.
It remains, in essence, Christmas schedule filler, but there is an unusual degree of emotional authenticity that marks Accidental Tourist out (from the seasonal schedule and from the customary herd of travelogues and minor-celebrities-overcoming-adversity documentaries.) Yes, it’s funny. Mulhern’s vibe is very much Karl Pilkington with insight, and Ant and Dec collapse laughing at his semi-inadvertent bon mots, revelations (“And then the duck came out with its beak on!”) and genuine horror at what most of us consider to be normal life events (like … hummus. Or ham). But they also clearly adore him, and he clearly wants to change and use this opportunity to try to do so.
They send Mulhern to a Korean fish market first, accompanied by Leeby, a mukbang video star. No, I didn’t know either, but it’s the practice of consuming food, often in large amounts and accompanied by amplified chewing sounds online for an avid audience. I haven’t gone much further in my research because I very quickly got the feeling that I would prefer not to know much more about the particular interests that make up the audience, but I hope Leeby is enjoying working in her chosen field and that she keeps her home address very secret.
Anyway. The man who will not eat prawns is soon trapped in a world of octopuses, sea snails and penis fish. We see them. They are aptly named. I’m definitely not doing any more research there. Mulhern, God love him, tries them all. His body convulses but he succeeds. It is indeed a proud moment.
Thereafter, he confronts the rest of his fears in quick succession. He gets naked in a sauna, has acupuncture, crosses a mountain bridge to a spiritual healer, and goes into the sea – he only just manages this one – with a group of free divers. He recounts it all for Ant and Dec over teriyaki chicken (“I’m going to try it!”) in a Korean restaurant back in the UK. His unfiltered gratitude and happiness is properly touching. “It’s been more than I could ever have wished for. To do something and change a pattern in your life is a big deal.” He is right, and you rarely hear it said so simply or in tones so heartfelt.
Accidental Tourist was originally intended to be a series. I hope it doesn’t become one. I hope it’s left like this. An unexpectedly lovely one-off, instead of a conceit stretched past all meaning and soon corrupted.
• Accidental Tourist aired on ITV1 and is on ITVX now.
