“Cows are probably better behaved than women, aren’t they?” smirks 52-year-old divorcee Pete, his arm resting louchely on a gatepost. The owner of a 350-acre dairy farm in Yorkshire, Pete has been single for seven years and is “hoping to [find] somebody who’s tall, slim and attractive because that’s the type of ladies I go for”. His solo status, he assures us, is down to his rigorous early-morning milking schedule. Of course it is, Pete. Bulging udders wait for no man.
A country dweller whose four-legged charges just aren’t providing the required companionship, Pete’s quest for romance is one of eight charted in Love in the Countryside, a dating show notable for its big-heartedness and absence of snark. It is presented by Sara Cox, a one-time farmer’s daughter who absconded to the city and thus understands the gulf between town and country living. Farming is a round-the-clock job and finding a partner can be tough in a place where sheep outnumber humans 100 to one.
A further 150 miles north of Pete is Christine, a smart, sweet-natured thirtysomething who runs a remote beef and sheep farm in Dumfries and Galloway. Christine has had her heart broken and is low on confidence, though that doesn’t stop her from getting potential boyfriends to rummage in her rams’ nether regions to check whether their balls have dropped. Other subjects include Mark, a Norfolk blacksmith who doesn’t believe in central heating; a divorced pig farmer, Wendy, on the lookout for a younger man; and 28-year-old equine vet Heather, whose time is largely spent up to her armpit in horse.
After viewing Pete and co’s dating profiles, potential suitors are asked to write old-fashioned letters for the hopefuls to sift through and narrow down for a speed-dating session. While Wendy and Christine look dolefully at their meagre offerings, Pete struggles to conceal his delight as he is handed 30 letters. Such is his bashfulness that he asks Wendy to read out an extract from one in which the applicant extols his “round, masculine features” and apologises for the drips of water on the page on account of her being fresh out of the shower when she wrote it.
This is about as racy as Love in the Countryside gets. In a world in which dating shows ask contestants to size up would-be lovers’ genitals before their faces (hello Naked Attraction), and in which people are asked to score their partners on their looks (greetings Your Face Or Mine), Love in the Countryside trades in an unusually chaste form of courtship, so much so that there’s a collective gasp when a man sends Heather a picture of his arse. Bum shots aside, however, there is no nudity, no engineered antagonism and no unpleasantness here, only polite small talk, tentative hand-holding and closeups of bewildered-looking cows.
Back in Yorkshire, there is frolicking in the cowshed as the three women on Pete’s shortlist explore the pens. “Ooh, it’s trying to nibble my bottom,” shrieks Francesca from Essex, as a calf greets her a little too warmly. Amid the undulating hills and gallons of cow shit, the search for a two-legged partner goes on.
Wednesday 2 May, 9pm, BBC2