23 April '10

“Last night, we got part two of Welcome to Lagos, and it was just as determinedly cheerful as part one. Too cheerful, I think: Pollyannaish in the face of poverty.”
Alice-Anzania Jones

“Poor has two meanings and there you have the key to understanding and loving this whole series. Its subjects have little money, for sure, but the last thing they want is our pity.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Given such material, most documentary makers would leave us with moist eyes and a resolve to set up a direct debit with the Nigerian Red Cross. But anyone who saw the start of this series last week will know that Gavin Searle is not most documentary makers. I have not seen programmes that have made me think so differently about the world since Adam Curtis’s last.”
Andrew Billen, the Times

“The landscape man doesn’t get involved, get soil under his fingernails; he stands around shaking his head playing the realist.”
Sam Wollaston, the Guardian

“The Landscape Man is sort of Grand Designs meets Ground Force affair in which people build themselves the sort of backyards most of us can only dream about.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“It’s painfully awkward, squirmingly excruciating to watch. But also lovely.”
Sam Wollaston, the Guardian 

“Although he secured interviews with a gabby nun from a silent order and Rome’s stylish conservative Mayor, we were barely allowed to hear a word they said. Could there be an ITV ban on subtitles in primetime? Almost certainly.”
Andrew Billen, the Times