Holiday Showdown

If Christmas wasn't stressful enough with your own family, imagine sharing it with someone else's...whilst on your dream holiday. Two Christmas holidays are under the spotlight in this first programme of Holiday Showdown, and they couldn't be more different - extreme sports in the Slovenian snow against luxury living and fun at Disney World, Florida. Fireman Andy Kerr, 44, and his family live in Newton Aycliffe near Durham. Every Christmas they push themselves to the limit on an extreme sports holiday in Slovenia. Before joining the fire service Andy spent 6 years in the Army Air Corp and he runs his holidays like he runs his home - with military precision. While Andy takes charge of physical fitness, mum Caroline, 41, is in charge of catering making sure Andy and their three children Chris, 18, Sean, 16, and Tasha, 14, are well fed and watered. Andy sees his family as "a corporation with a corporate head figure!" The luxury-loving Jones family from Knott-End-On-Sea near Blackpool love winter sun, fast food and the larger than life entertainment of Disney World Florida. Dad Tom, 39, runs a successful locksmith business, and wife Pam, 37, and kids Tom, 16, Nick, 15, and Laura, aged 10, all live in luxury. They like lazing around in the Jacuzzi, watching TV and playing computer games. After Andy's military regime in Slovenia which includes 6am starts and a gruelling itinerary of ski-ing, snowboarding and snowmobiling, the Joneses reveal their Florida holiday, to the horror of Disney-hating Andy but the delight of his family who have always dreamed of visiting the States. As the Joneses plan further revenge, things go a little too far and tempers boil over in the final showdown meal, on New Years Eve.

In the second programme of the series a tee-total, Egyptian loving family team up with a partying, patriotic family who love nothing better than a right old booze up in Tenerife. The Wilson family from the Isle of Mann love to holiday in Egypt, and away from other tourists they immerse themselves in the ancient Egyptian culture. There is step dad Tony, mum Joanne, and 15-year-old Terrance. They live their lives with the view to always helping others, and they carry this abroad with them too. They think Egypt is a wonderful place for a holiday because of the warm and friendly Egyptian people, and they return year after year to enjoy the culture and visit the friends they have made. “All the fun of going to Egypt is to meet the people, eat the food and enjoy all their customs,” says Tony, and that means there won’t be a burger or chips in sight. Joanne says going to a foreign country and hitting the booze “is an absolute waste of time”. Sharing their holiday is the party-loving Kent family from Dover – dad Paul, mum Audra and teenagers Tully, 16, and Lucy, 14. They love British food, plenty of drink, bars and clubs, and find the sun-soaked island of Tenerife the perfect holiday experience. And they only eat English food abroad. “Tenerife is a home from home for us, everything we love about Britain – the fry ups, the roast dinners, the culture is there but with the sunshine,” says Audra. In the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, the Kents are shocked by what they see. Away from the resort centre they visit villages and markets deep in the heart of the ‘real’ Egypt, and the Kents are disgusted by the poverty and general poor conditions that surround them: “You really would think you’re back in the days of Jesus,” says Paul. But it’s the traditional Egyptian food and no beer to wash it down with that pushes the Kents to breaking point causing a confrontational final breakfast. As tears flow the Wilson family are subjected

RECLUSIVE Hare Krishnas, the Falconer-Pughs, live in the rural backwaters of mid Wales. Once a year they make a pilgrimage to Kerala, southern India. The fun-loving Foster family, from Doncaster, meanwhile, love nothing more than socialising with fellow Brits in the home-from-home resort of Magaluf. Mum Sharon, dad Harry, pictured below, 19-year-old daughter Teri and 13-year-old Jade have returned to the resort for 15 years. Material girl Sharon is a shoe fanatic and the highlight of her holiday is blowing the family budget shopping. Her daughters share the same values. "We don't want to be anywhere where there's no electric, we want to look glamourous," says Teri. Holiday Showdown, a programme somehow even more pointless than Loose Women, sees what happens when they accompany each other on their favoured vacations. In terms of contriving conflict, it's the TV equivalent of cock-fighting. As the Falconer-Pughs arrive in Magaluf, Sharon is determined to be the perfect host – but Sharon's idea of fun isn't a hit for the Falconer-Pughs. It's not everyone who wants to bounce semi-nude on an inflatable banana. The Foster girls, meanwhile, are reduced to tears at the prospect of slumming it in India with no make-up. And yet as the Kerala holiday progresses, something of a miracle happens as the Fosters reflect on their own way of life. As they mingle with the locals, what started as the holiday from hell becomes a life-changing journey.

Manoeuvring two families with opposing ideas about life into close quarters and letting the cameras roll may not be the subtlest way to make reality television but, as previous series of Holiday Showdown have shown, it does often make for some compulsively entertaining stuff. And so it is tonight, as the Brown family from Birmingham and the Maybes from Essex take each other on a “dream holiday” for a week. The Browns’ destination of choice is rural Scotland, for a survival holiday in which they construct their own shelters and skin their own food. None of the Maybes are happy about this, least of all their daughter Jade, a trainee beautician who sniffles that “it’s not a holiday; it’s a forest.” Still, with admirable stoicism, they put up with the indignities of outdoor latrines and dour weather and are soon whisked off to their holiday of choice in sunny Lanzarote. Were this a TV drama and not a reality show, the boozy arguments would have begun here; as it is, both families display enough charm and open-mindedness to keep the show from playing to stereotype. The Browns, with one notable exception, actually enjoy eating deep-fried ribs and larking about in the pool; and the Maybes enjoy showing the Browns how to relax, package holiday-style.