When the BBC gave Clive Myrie the green light, he was surprised. Having been asked to come up with ideas for another travel series to follow in the footsteps of last year's Clive Myrie's Italian Road Trip, the journalist, newsreader and host of the legendary quiz show Mastermind put forward a number of suggestions. The Caribbean was “pretty near the bottom of the list”, if only because of the unavoidable expense.
Instead, he reveals, “The BBC said, ‘We want you to go the Caribbean, there is no question about it, but we'll give you the same budget as you had for Italy.’” At which point Myrie, speaking from his home in North London, starts laughing. While he got to visit some idyllic places, the costs meant his filming schedule was demanding.
Nevertheless, you can understand contains 15 episodes each lasting 30 minutes, and reflects his professional skills as a senior news journalist and foreign correspondent. It offers a mix of travelogue and reportage, while also rooting the programme in Myrie's more personal reflections about his own family history and what it means to be a black Briton.
