Without Limits: Vietnam review – Very different conditions

It might not have been the snappiest title but it said something clear about his experience.

People being people, say wellintentioned things without thinking how off the mark they are, or really wondering what it feels like to be less able.

Though it’s not exactly a chuckle-a-minute, WITHOUT LIMITS: VIETNAM (BBC1) does something important in that respect while taking us on a journey through a fascinating country.

Six Britons are travelling 900 miles through the South East Asian country, on motorbikes and in a four-wheel drive. 

For each one of them, the struggles are familiar to anyone who’s journeyed in that part of the world: mosquitoes, mysterious food, a baffling language and people who stare.

Each one also faces a personal challenge, from profound deafness to dwarfism to missing limbs, and while, in the first part of the journey, those didn’t deter anyone, they could certainly not be glossed over either. 

A lot of shows try to though. Dramas sometimes make us think that less able people are all doughty, cheerful souls, forever cracking jokes about their condition or pretending that there is nothing they cannot do.

They also unintentionally steer us into thinking every kind of disability is the same.

The team in last night’s programme for the most part got on with their journey, enjoyed themselves and helped each other.

In more private moments though they gave a different perspective.

Mary, who was born with dwarfism, felt something of an outsider because she had obviously always been that way.

She hadn’t once been taller, in the way that Vicky had once had two legs or Andy a pair of arms.

Steve, suddenly confined to a wheelchair after falling off a balcony, was irked that people never grasped the full extent of his struggles. 

His legs didn’t work but equally, a whole portion of his upper body was in the same boat, giving him digestive issues and a whole host of struggles invisible to the eye.

Charlie had decided to have his leg amputated after 10 painful years of operations.

Vicky had merely got on a roller coaster one day.

They were not, by any means, in the same boat, or deserving of the same label.

Unfair labels were being dished out on GYPSY KIDS: OUR SECRET WORLD (Channel 5) too as young Margaret helped her grandfather, the legendary Paddy Doherty, organise a talent show in Bedford.

If it had been filmed in many other communities, we’d have doubted whether a child Margaret’s age was really being given all that responsibility. 

As we’ve seen throughout this documentary series though, travelling folk grow up early, perhaps because they have to.

There was a depressing scene before the Gypsies Got Talent show launched, where the police came to the theatre. No crimes had been committed but calls had been made. 

“We have had one or two people concerned – obviously,” said one of the attending officers.

I’d have asked her why she’d said “obviously”. Paddy just smiled and assured her it would all be all right.

The sad thing was, at the start, he’d said he wanted to put on a show so his fellow travellers would see how much talent there was in their midst.

It wasn’t the travellers who needed educating.