DANCER Wayne Sleep surveyed the beautiful city of Jaipur and sighed contentedly.

“India is the perfect place to reflect and explore the spiritualism inside me. I’m just hoping I’ll have more time to meditate and improve myself.”

Ah, inner peace and calm. A life goal that I’m sure is shared by the seven other famous OAPs you’re shacked up with for the next three weeks, Wayne, including actress Miriam Margolyes: “I do fart, and they’ll have to accept that.”

More or less then.

Welcome to BBC2’s funny and thought-provoking The Real Marigold Hotel, billed as a documentary asking Jan Leeming’s question: “Is this a place that a pensioner from England can go and live?”

But in truth it’s a reality show — a high-end, grey-haired, nookie-free version of Celebrity Love Island. And it’s brilliant.

Sleep, Margolyes and Leeming are trying out life in a communal retirement home with Bobby George, Sylvester McCoy, an alarmingly uptight Rosemary Shrager (“I get myself in a tizzy”), Catchphrase’s Roy Walker and singer Patti Boulaye.

It’s the kind of casting that would make I’m A Celebrity even better, by removing the young guns who bring nothing to the party (Vicky Pattison aside).

There they were, off the tourist track to buy essentials, hopelessly out of place: “Does anybody speak English? Do you sell honey? Huh-nee? HUH-NEE?”

And then amid the mayhem of mopeds, Margolyes piped up: “I want a wee-wee. Is there a toilet around here?”

Jaipur bazaar, it turns out, is not the best place to be caught short if you have mobility issues, like Bobby George escorting poor Miriam through the traffic.

“It’s like a war zone,” he said.

Margolyes: “Imagine what the loo is going to be like.” (“Vivid”, it was.) But as anyone who’s watched her on The Graham Norton Show will tell you, she is quality TV, the undisputed star here.

The gentle firebrand certainly has a way with words: “I’d better just give an appearance in the kitchen to give the complete fiction that I was prepared to help.

“I’ve got a bit of lipstick. I only put a bit on because I look like a tart.”

And, refusing to share her Vegemite: “I’ve bought a bottle of whisky for everybody so they don’t think I’m a mean old cow.”

Bobby George is terrific value too, asking a member of Jaipur’s royal family: “What do high society do for hobbies? Do you play darts?” before advising her to keep her arm straight on the oche.

And he showed just how much The Real Marigold Hotel is the antidote to all the self-entitled horrors on Celebrity Big Brother, commenting on the city’s poverty and rich/poor gulf that all eight are struggling to reconcile: “We’re sitting in the posh place of India tonight. They’re sitting on the floor.

“We don’t know India until we sit on the floor with them.”

Compare and contrast with a tearful Gemma Collins to Big Brother: “My hair, this is very expensive hair, it’s frazzled because you’ve only got straighteners in here, you haven’t got heated rollers. The f***ing hair is frazzled!”

The slums of Jaipur send their deepest sympathy, Gemma.

Spudulikes…

Winterwatch’s Martin Hughes-Games’s huge poncho making him look like a Birdman of Bognor competitor.

The Great Sport Relief Bake Off hero David James’s showstopper cake looking less like an American football helmet, more Edd the Duck gunged and shot in the eye.

Alex Jones on The One Show guest Matt Perry’s ping-pong opponent: “It was going to be Matt (Baker) but he had a sheep-related injury over the weekend.”

And 10,000BC: Two Tribes leader John: “I don’t want to be the tribe that comes out looking like refugees because we hadn’t eaten for days. I want them to come out with smiles.” Narrator: “After days of refusing to eat, for her own wellbeing it is decided Paige must been removed from the experiment.” Chin up and don’t forget to smile!

Spuduhates…

Ferne McCann including a story about herself in This Morning’s showbiz news.

Attention craver Gemma Collins getting away scot-free with walking out of Celeb Big Brother’s fire exit four times.

Sugar Free Farm guinea pig Jane McDonald pointing out the show’s very obvious flaw: “Once we leave here, we might have to go back to our sugary lifestyles because it’s convenient.”

Michaela Strachan’s ludicrous Winterwatch animal cruelty disclaimer: “Let me say these are wild mice, they went into the maze of their own accord to get a treat of nuts. We didn’t make them go in.”

And EastEnders’ Stacey believing baby Arthur is the son of God but not batting an eyelid that her psychiatrist is the Broadchurch Echo editor.