Pilgrimage is a shining example of why we still need the BBC ...Middle East

We’ve stopped listening to one another. Entrenched in which “side” we’re on, we can’t hear each other above the noise, so we tune out. But on Pilgrimage, it seems that dropping celebrities on a mountain trail with nothing but their individual ways of seeing the world, gives them – and us – the opportunity to tune back in.

Now in its seventh series, this programme produces the kind of thoughtful conversations that can only truly happen away from the online shouting. This year, seven notables from the worlds of presenting, sport, comedy, pop music, journalism and reality TV trek the Jakobsweg trail over 300km through the Alps from Austria to Switzerland. There are worse backdrops to a TV series – lush green pastures dotted with wild flowers, forest tracks and snow-covered peaks are in every direction.

The format still works because of some sensitive and intelligent casting. There’s no sly attempt to insert a provocateur, just a respectful exchange of views between funny, interesting folk. Over 12 days, they discover their mutual interest in faith or spirituality and, crucially, that none of them really feels as though they have the answers. Curious people make for interesting viewing, and when it comes to faith, there is no need for expertise.

“Life was simple as an athlete,” says former Paralympian Stefanie Reid. But now, at 39, she struggles with the expectations around potential parenthood. Meanwhile, Jeff Brazier explains how he has used his spirituality to navigate life as a single father following the death of the mother of his children, his ex-partner Jade Goody, when she was just 27.

Former The Wanted singer Jay McGuinness also lost his bandmate, Tom Parker, to cancer and wonders whether “we just all don’t know what’s going on together”. And maybe there’s a comfort in that.

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Jeff Brazier on Pilgrimage, a cheeky nun and sharing a bed with his co-star

“Why would you not ask?” says comedian and writer Helen Lederer of her belief in a benevolent God, despite the family members murdered in concentration camps during the Second World War. As she treks, her huge eyes seem to search the snowy mountain tops for clues. Her dad took her skiing in Austria as a child and she knows the flood of memories is going to be hard.

This year’s reality hire, former soldier Harry Clark, who won series two of The Traitors, reveals a previously undivulged Catholicism that occasionally sees him going off alone to pray. He self-describes as “the smartest dumbest person” and while he often fills the air with naïve questions – he asks a monk if he has “super powers” – his curiosity and openness encourage the same in his companions.

Comedian Daliso Chaponda offers his own thoughts on the blending of different faiths, citing Malawian witch doctors from one strand of his heritage, and their displaying of ancestral symbols alongside representations of the Virgin Mary. His own faith, he says, is closest to the Bahá’i religion, which says we all have one spiritual goal but aim to get there via different paths, embracing other religions. Then he confesses his first encounter with the Bahá’i was at the invitation of a “hot girl”.

In nature, walking long distances every day, luxuriating in cleans sheets at night, the seven begin to open up. Emmy-winning journalist Nelufar Hedayat says she considers herself a “modern Muslim” but knows that in her birth country, Afghanistan, the way she dresses and behaves is forbidden. She’s angry at the things she says have been done in the name of a religion she otherwise clings to. Dalisa points out that religions can be misappropriated.

As with Gone Fishing, the unassuming chatter of people in nature really draws you in when it’s presented this skilfully. Pilgrimage is quietly brilliant in the way TV isn’t really allowed to be anymore – everything else is fighting to grab headlines and eyeballs in order to justify its existence.

This delight may never make headlines, but by thunder, it’s a salve in these wretchedly shrill times we live in. It’s also the kind of TV that will disappear with the BBC if we’re not careful.

‘Pilgrimage’ continues tomorrow at 9pm on BBC Two

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