It is much to Miles Jupps credit that, at no stage in this terrific show, does he venture a pun on the Wankhede Stadium. Infamously irresistible to the cast of Test Match Special, the easy lure of Mumbais premier comedy goldmine proved an untapped seam in Jupps Indian tale. Jupp best known, as he mock-bitterly acknowledges, as Archie the Inventor in CBeebies Balamory spent the winter of 2005-6 in India, pretending to be a cricket journalist. Notionally engaged by BBC Scotland and the Western Mail, Jupp follows the test series between England and India, surrounded by his heroes: not the England players, who barely warrant a mention, but his idols of old, now denizens of the press box. Michael Atherton, Jupps hero, is first encountered asking not for middle stump, but for directions on where to put his memory stick; David Gower propping up not Englands fragile batting order, but the hotel bar. Jupps witty and engaging tale lets us accompany him through the travails of Indian officialdom, the mixed welcome of his new colleagues (including a tabloid journalist introduced only as Mr. Who The Fuck Is That?), and his frantic attempts to convince Peter Baxter that he does, indeed, have copy to file. At his lowest ebb, we encounter Jupp lying on the floor of his hotel room, stricken with the squits: it seems the Wankhede did not, this time, keep the doctor away. It is unsurprising, as someone whose idea of a fascinating anecdote is to recount the time Ian Botham bought me fish & chips, that I adored this show. For those cricket-tragics amongst us, we have found a new high priest: Jupps wide-eyed adoration as he is accepted at the court of King Beefy is familiar to all of us who have trailed England around the world (only occasionally playing pool with Michael Vaughan in a bar in Colombo). For those who dont like cricket, this is a fish-out-of-water tale, as one man meets his heroes and discovers that their lustre is greater from afar; for those that do, this is four from the moment it leaves the bat.
