Harry Redknapp’s Sandbanks Summer review – utter piffle

‘I’m sweating my knackers off here,” said Joe Pasquale from inside improbably shiny medieval armour. It was dressing-up day at Corfe Castle, the Dorset fortress knocked up by William the Conqueror 1,000 years ago, knocked down by Oliver Cromwell in 1649 and today the site of a royal battle for a throne nobody in their right minds would want.

Both Pasquale and Harry Redknapp are kings of the jungle, each having won I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here. But which of them is the true king? Pretend you care. The matter could only be decided by the two reality show recidivists mincing around in costume holding toy swords while tourists held up phones to record the moment for posterity. Imagine two cockney muppets wading through treacle while trading under-scripted boy bants and you’ll get the gist.

I thought of Agincourt and of another Harry. Truly, there were gentlemen a-bed in England holding their manhoods cheap while these two made a mockery of medieval combat (Redknapp was wearing shorts and trainers throughout). Now we know what drove Meghan and Harry to the other side of the world. It wasn’t racism or press intrusion but the prospect of overseeing nonsense like this for the rest of their professional lives.

Finally, though, while Pasquale was distracted by the state of his genitals, Redknapp swept in with his sword and delivered a blow to his adversary’s aforementioned crown jewels. The referee proclaimed Redknapp victor, though having ex-Millwall and Liverpool enforcer Neil “Razor” Ruddock officiate was the very definition of insanity.

Harry Redknapp’s Sandbanks Summer (ITV) involves the 72-year-old ex-Hammers midfielder, former Spurs manager and brazen spokesman for some gambling website, yucking it up with mates at his home in the most expensive corner of Britain and going to nearby tourist attractions. My respects to the makers of this show for wringing half an hour of serviceable telly from this lame premise.

We last saw Redknapp and his mates on telly a year ago in Harry’s Heroes: The Full English, in which Redknapp coached a team of overweight footballing has-beens – Ruddock and John Barnes among them – to slim down, shape up and then beat a team of Germans. Did his lardy lads stick it to the Boche? Frankly, I don’t know: I didn’t get to the end of the series. The same, I fear, will be true of Harry Redknapp’s Sandbanks Summer. In later episodes, Barnes and another genial footballing proselytiser for fleecing the vulnerable through gambling, namely Chris Kamara, will present their credentials. I haven’t got the strength.

Here again Ruddock was the butt. “Pull up your pants, this isn’t Southend,” shouted Redknapp from the shore, as Ruddock paddled in the sea with Pasquale. Redknapp was on the touchline again, dispensing advice – only this time to keep Razor’s battered saveloy and mushy peas off Sandbanks’ genteel menu. The camera withdrew to a chaste long shot, so Razor’s builder’s cleavage was more suggestion than fact, though I suspect I won’t be the only one having nightmares about it.

Harry and his mates found a penthouse flat on sale for £5m in Sandbanks, where real estate is more costly than Manhattan. Say what you want about Manhattan, but does it have a view of Poole Harbour or a Tesco Metro? Have its beaches earned a Blue Flag 32 years straight? Of course not. The only problem with this free publicity for the Dorset Tourist Board is that it may be too successful. This summer Sandbanks’ beaches will be packed thanks to this show. Just see if they aren’t.

The estate agent, who needs to work on his sales patter, said this flat was “almost dead man’s shoes”. Very few properties come up for sale in Sandbanks because if you have one you hold on to it until you’re taken out feet first. It was like Location, Location, Location without Phil and Kirstie, which is a bonus – or watching somebody else’s staycation, which is not. If this is what Brexit Britain means holiday-wise, we have just made a terrible mistake.