Welcome to our home,’ say Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark as they greet us warmly, brass tankards in hand. Before heat readers get too excited, the TV stars haven’t taken their friendship to the next level and moved in together. We’re actually in a lavish Indian-themed cocktail bar in London in honour of their new TV show. ‘I’ve been working hard – I’ve done This Morning and now I’m here. If I don’t have a drink, I think I might f***ing collapse,’ Rylan says, before taking a sip.
On paper, barrister and GMB host Rob, 47, and Rylan, 36, of X Factor, CBB and This Morning fame may seem unlikely pals, but in real life, they’re a winning combination. Their cultural jaunt to Italy for last year’s Grand Tour, following in the footsteps of 19th-century poet Lord Byron, scooped them a BAFTA for Factual Entertainment earlier this year. So, they’re doing it all over again. This time, the intrepid friends have packed their bags again for India in celebration of the novel A Passage To India by Rob’s favourite author E.M. Forster.
Over the course of more than three weeks in the South Asian country, Rob and Rylan meet royalty, rap on the streets of Delhi, and get friendly with the locals. Lots to chat about then…
What made you pick India this time?
Rylan: We were forced. No, another of Rob’s literary heroes is E.M. Forster, so A Passage To India made sense. I’ve never been [to India], had no idea, still not read the book. Up until about halfway through Delhi, I thought his name was Ian, not E. M., and I didn’t realise he was gay until episode two.
Rob: It’s a journey that asks new and different questions and, at the same time, empowers people to encounter great art, and think about a place they thought they knew, in a new way. It’s also the 100-year anniversary of A Passage To India, a book I really, really love.
Rylan: This is a different show to Grand Tour, but the same. It feels familiar, but in a new location. I loved it, so fingers crossed people like it. We went to India to experience India, and we just had so many amazing experiences. We’ve had a lifetime experience that we never ever would have had.
It was Rylan’s first time there – what did you hope to show him, Rob?
Rob: I want to see it all, but this is about what I want to encounter with him. It’s him going, ‘Let’s go and experience it, and be in it.’
Rylan: Let’s live it.
Rob: When we were looking at the Lutyens’ Delhi and that Imperial architecture, I would have analysed it. Rylan said, ‘Let’s go talk to locals and see what they think.’ Of course that’s the right thing to do. What Rylan teaches me is to be real and in the moment, and I would take away and learn so much more.
Rylan, did you have any preconceptions about India?
Rylan: I was worried about everything! Everyone I talked to said, ‘You’re going to get ill. You’re going to get Delhi belly. It’s going to be hot,’ and I thought, ‘F***ing hell, this sounds like my worst nightmare’. Lo and behold, when I got off of the plane, I got bitten on the face by a mosquito and had a golf ball on the f***ing cheek. It was not a great start. After four hours’ sleep, I was chucked into a tuk-tuk in the middle of, I can only describe it as a Wacky Races replay. It was a lot. When I say I dove into India head first, I dove into India head first.
Rob: I can’t overstate how real that is.
Rylan: He got so pissed off. We had a row. I’m like, ‘Don’t get pissed off with me. This isn’t normal for me! I could have lost an arm!’ It was crazy.
Rob: I said, ‘Sometimes I feel like I’m the benevolent headmistress of a school for excluded children’. I did run out of patience.
Rylan: India wasn’t new to Rob, but it was new to me. However, by the end of it, I got used to the chaos. I will go back. And I’m like the cow whisperer.
Were there any disasters?
Rylan: I had some fake tan drama when I got to Jaipur. I nearly flew home! All three bottles of fake tan exploded in my face, and I had nothing. You can’t find fake tan anywhere in India.
Rob: Not a joke.
Rylan: It was a f***ing nightmare. A friend was going to ship it in from Dubai. I ended up having to Fedex it from London. It cost me £400 just to get a bottle of St Tropez.
Rob: Because that’s what you really need.
Rylan: It’s what I need. I need what I need!
Having done Grand Tour, how did you cope with each other second time around?
Rylan: We both have annoying habits. There are things I’ll do that wind Rob up, there’s things he does that winds everyone up. [Laughs] We show him really pissing me off on camera.
Rob: Shut up.
Rylan: But that’s why we’re best mates, because we went into Grand Tour as acquaintances and left as friends. We’ve gone into Passage To India as best friends and left as best friends. Were you hoping I’d say boyfriends then? As much as I love him, Rob isn’t my boyfriend…
Rob: Or husband.
Rylan: Even though he’s wearing a ring. Look, you’ve just moved it. Everyone thinks we’re engaged!
Rob: They keep making these fake AI things about us.
Rylan: Like actual wedding photos.
Rob: Where I look like Vladimir Putin.
Rylan: I love him too much to marry him.
You saw an astrologer in Rajasthan, where Rylan got a very interesting reading…
Rylan: F***ing astrologer! He can go and f*** himself! I was so annoyed, I was swearing for an hour afterwards. The f***ing language that came out of my mouth.
Rob: I watched it back the other day and it was hilarious. That was the funniest moment of my life. I don’t go for that absurd woo-woo. It’s like a bucketload of horse shit. But he was really insistent.
Rylan: I was so excited. I had to give my date and time of birth so I rang my mum. The shit he then f***ing came up with – that I’m a prostitute with a gammy leg, I need to help the disabled, I’m never going to be happy, I’m as psychotic as the moon. Are you f***ing joking? Rob had a blessed reading. I was so pissed off about mine. To make matters worse, when I spoke to my mum, she told me she’d got my time of birth wrong. It was my brother’s, so it’s all bollocks anyway! But he also told me I was a royal in a past life. I still believe that.
Rob: Well, you’re a bad queen.
Speaking of royalty, what was it like celebrating Diwali with the Jaipur royal family?
Rob: He’s so comfortable with royalty.
Rylan: The prince [Sawai Padmanabh Singh] texts me now.
Rob: I was less obsequious around him. ‘Thank you so much for your extraordinary contribution to art.’ Rylan goes, ‘Your gaff’s all right’.
Rylan: Wasn’t it where they shot James Bond’s Octopussy? He was like, ‘Come back and stay here’, and he took my number and I took his.
And how was it rapping on the streets of Delhi?
Rob: Horrific. It was like David Brent on steroids. There are no protruding parts of my body left to cringe with. When I watch it back, I feel ill. But I was glad I took part in it.
Rylan: I can’t watch it back. I don’t want to watch myself back rapping – absolutely not, I’m not a rapper. But to be able to say we rapped in a marketplace in Central Delhi with a rapper. When else can I say that? That’s why we did it. It’s all part of the experience, experiences you wouldn’t normally get to do. Live, Robert!
What were your highlights?
Rob: The Kathputli colony transit camp [where more than 2000 families live, awaiting permanent homes since 2014] in Delhi stood out. Their community was so powerful. It was joyful. That experience was really emotional in a surprising way. It was so touching. That was the encounter that really left, in the words of a great poet [Gregory Maguire, who wrote Wicked], a handprint on my heart. I think about that place a lot.
Rylan: It was so incredible. These people haven’t got a lot at all, but they were the kindest, happiest, most welcoming people.
Did you think you’d be doing this 20 years ago?
Rylan: No, I thought I would probably be doing time.
Rob: I would have represented you! Twenty years ago, I was defending murder trials or getting extradition warrants.
Were you surprised by the response to the Grand Tour?
Rylan: When I saw the first cut, I told him, ‘We’re either going to get cancelled or get a BAFTA’. I saw myself getting off with a French rugby player. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never seen myself kiss someone before’. Because when do you see yourself kiss someone unless someone’s filming it? I’m not Bonnie Blue.
Rob: You helped me chat someone up, remember? I told them they looked like Michelangelo.
Rylan: For f***’s sake, Robert. I told you not to f***ng bring that up. I called the exec and asked her to send me the clip because I was really worried. I’ve been through a divorce, I’m single, I don’t want to be looking like I’m f***ing lairing it out on the town, trying to get my end away. We both watched it…
Rob: And it is really beautiful.
Rylan: And the reaction from people of how they connected with it is heartwarming. And then we got the highest f***ing accolade we could get on TV.
So, where to next?
Rylan: We’ve got plans. I’d like to do more of Asia. There are some places we’ve discussed. But if we get to do another, it would be somewhere there’s a story for us to follow, which aligns with our own interests.
Could it be Rylan’s literature choice next time?
Rob: Oh, do me a favour.
Rylan: I have only really read my books. You can come round to mine for free.
Rob: There you are. We’d end up in Marbella. There’s nothing wrong with Marbella. I just don’t think we’d go on much of a journey.
Rylan: You say that, but I’ve had plenty a journey in Marbella. Nikki Beach would definitely feature.
Rob And Rylan’s Passage To India airs on BBC Two on Sunday 14 September. All three episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from then