A Place in the Sun

 

“What television program has done more in the past year to keep the sanity of millions of Irish and UK citizens?  

What program has lifted spirits daily since lockdown began?”

“I give you” (blast of trumpets) A Place in the Sun! A program broadcast on Channel 4 and repeated on Channel 5.  “A Place in the Sun” has provided a whole hour every afternoon of pure escapism. While the rain hammered against our windows and we added more coal to the fire, we watched the presenters, dressed in summer clothing walking in brilliant sunshine and leading couples around towns, villages and properties in places as far afield as Bulgaria, Turkey, Tunisia, Spain, Portugal, France and the Canary Islands. They recorded the programs mainly in the off-season as the seaside resorts and towns were quiet, the communal blue pools deserted.  It gives the viewers a somewhat false sense of calm about places that would in peak season be jammed with holidaymakers. But do bear in mind that many of the people involved in the property search were looking to live all year round in such places so, on balance I believe it was useful visiting at those times of the year.

The program’s format is to present five properties starting with the weakest and ending with the strongest, ramping up the tension as one by one the properties fall by the wayside and the presenter talks animatedly to the camera, with ten minutes to go, of needing to pull “a rabbit out of a hat” with their final selection.  Nine times out of ten the property chosen is the fifth, which begs the question why bother to see the others but then you’d have no program and its part of its charm visiting several locations during each program, learning a little bit more about each of the areas we thought we knew.

The presenters come across as nice chatty knowledgeable people and the couples themselves are invariably people that go with the flow.  “Go off now and discover this one on your own” they are instructed and they duly shuffle off and do so. The presenters try to read how the property search is going and share a quiet word with the camera to keep us in the picture. It draws us into the presenter’s predicament and primes us for the next property to be seen and the reasons why it’s been chosen, a nice hook to keep us watching.

The couples featured are generally in their fifties or older. Many are seeking a property that can act as a holiday home for several years before they retire to live in a place in the sun permanently. Most sought extra space, a spare bedroom or two for visiting family members, children and grandchildren. Most sought places in towns or close to beaches often as one of them had mobility issues. Others sought cooler more mountainous locations so that they could grow their own grapes, olives and fruit & vegetables. 

I found that couple watching an interesting part of the program. How they related to each other and to the presenter. If one partner constantly spoke for both it gave a telling insight into their relationship. I also noticed that in male/female couplings, the male will never pronounce on rooms until the female does and then he agrees with her every time. It’s as if men are afraid to disagree with their partners, at least on camera. I’d guess that a frank exchange of views takes place off camera later, perhaps over a glass of wine that evening. But to focus on the humans and the properties they visit is to miss the “X” factor that makes this show so watchable and such a tonic to the soul.

The “X” factor is the programs ability to transport the viewer if only for an hour, to a land of bright sunshine, blue seas, sandy beaches and bobbing yachts. Places where small restaurants have tables with umbrella’s set outside, town squares feature ancient churches, fields upon fields of banana trees border the roads, promenades trace harbour perimeters and stretch beyond the camera and into the distance. Volcanic mountains covered with greenery tower over the villages below whose beaches feature black stones and sand. The scenery and the heat visibly present at the time of making the program yields us the spiritual benefit that a bottle of vitamin D tablets never could. We suck in the sun holiday mood, we imagine that sun on our bodies, we walk alongside them as they wander along the seashore. We are there when they sip coffee in a cafe or travel in small boats across crystal clear waters.

Yes, there is an additional bonus to be enjoyed in taking voyeuristic delight in seeing inside other people’s properties. Isn’t that kitchen a bit small, a bit narrow, a bit traditional, a bit modern or just a bit too far away from the dining room? Isn’t that private pool fab, weird shaped or just small? Would you want a plunge pool in your garden? Did you notice there was no grass in the garden? Did you see the orange grove that came with that place? Then a further bonus comes when the cameraman shares the views from their balconies, rooftop suntraps or outside cooking areas. It all adds to the pleasure of the program.

Anyway regardless of which property is the chosen one, we move to the program end game with the bidding process which though never a certainty tends to occur more times than not. The presenter relays the couples offer to the property agent and sits back with her mobile phone on the table waiting alongside the couple to see if it’s accepted. It’s at this point that the minds of some buyers appear to have become warped during the process of program making. They seem to lose sight of their original budget sum and will seem reticent to spend the necessary amount to get a property that has clearly been their favourite and ticked all the boxes. They enter a low bid, say forty thousand below the asking price, up it marginally by ten thousand and then say that’s your lot. We sit in amazement as they appear happy to walk away from exactly what they wanted with the seller’s final price well within their budget. “Nowt strange as folk” as an old English saying goes.  Alternatively we see instances where the buyers shoot low with an offer forty thousand below the asking price and to our astonishment the offer is accepted!

Regardless of the outcome of negotiations, the presenter then toasts her couple with glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice and wishes them happiness for the future and the credits roll. The credits themselves are revealing as it appears the programs were recorded in 2018 and 2019.  Due to Covid-19 and the pandemic program making didn’t occur in 2020 and the presenters were forced to join us for autumn and winter which must have driven them to add a few layers of clothing. Hidden away in the credits are given the GBP/EUR exchange rates which were current at the time of making the program.  I found this useful as throughout the show prices are given in pounds rather than euro’s and for us, in Euroland it’s useful to be able to convert to euro values as watching from a cold environment does make a place in the sun seem most agreeable.

 Is that it then?

No, for the viewers can garner one more lift from the program through the creation of uplifting thoughts that remain with the viewer long after the credits have rolled. Such as, with prices like those we’d just seen, if we really wanted to, we too could probably afford to buy a holiday or retirement home.

This dream is accessible to all. It just requires a mind flip and a strong desire to make it happen. The freedom this gem of broadcasting offers can last a lifetime.