The well known Caribbean

Introduction

The only thing I watch on ITV these days is Champions League football. When have they actually produced any decent television in the last 20 years? So this programme completely passed me by...

Its premise is simple. Sir Trevor McDonald travels around the various areas of the Caribbean to meet those who live there, scratch beneath the surface and generally poke his nose around, whilst being himself...



He meets his one of his Cuban news-reading counterparts, hangs out with Richard Branson, travels to his birthplace, Trinidad, visits David Copperfield's outrageously expensive resort (the most expensive in the Bahamas), interviews women in a Jamaican jail who have been imprisoned for drug smuggling, sees the continued devastation of Monserrat, and visits Barbados, a haven for the rich and famous.

Video and Audio

An excellent 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, as first broadcast. Nothing wrong from a technical point of view and it's exactly like it was if you watched it on TV.



We also get a DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, again as first broadcast, and again perfectly fine technically.

Extra Features

An interview with Sir Trev. It's quite interesting, but it could have been longer for me.

Conclusion

I'm not all that sure that this is the "Secret Caribbean". Sure, Sir Trevor McDonald is a great presenter. He has gravitas, and he deserves respect wherever he goes. He shows a genuine interest in what people have to say. People open up to him, from Sir George Martin, still grieving for his wrecked recording studio, to coffee growers, chocolate makers and random prisoners being held for drug smuggling, grieving for their wrecked lives.

But the Caribbean on display here isn't really anything that we haven't seen before. The programme does capture the pristine islands, the stunning beauty, and a sense of some of the natural disasters that have struck the area. Sir Trev at carnival time is a sight to behold, but again it's not really anything that we haven't come across somewhere else (even in a ropey Bond film...)



So it's an interesting documentary, but it doesn't really tell the story of the "Secret Caribbean", rather the Caribbean that we've all seen before. Rich people with a lot of money, poor people with not a lot of money. Sandy Lane Hotel attracts Michael Winner at around $30,000 a night. In nearby Cuba you would have to work for 125 years to afford to stay for a night...

A great programme to look at, just a shame that it doesn't tell us anything new.