Even in holiday mode, Stacey loves to wallow in trauma and tragedy! CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Stacey Dooley's Australia

Published: 16:54 EDT, 8 November 2026 | Updated: 17:01 EDT, 8 November 2026 Stacey Dooley's AustraliaRating:Stacey Dooley just can't switch off and have a nice holiday. You could stick her on a beach full of happy picnickers and she'll track down the one family whose chips were stolen by seagulls.'Oh my Gawd,' she'll tell them, lip trembling and eyes welling. 'That muster bin so like awful for you.'Performative empathy is the current celebrity trend, but our carrot-haired Essex girl was in danger of overdoing it, on Stacey Dooley's Australia.Taking a 45-minute ferry ride from Melbourne on the south coast, she arrived on Kangaroo Island, a stretch of land she described as 'about the same size as Cornwall' but with just 5,000 inhabitants.Oz is a big place of course, and there are plenty of remote regions even more sparsely populated. But they might not have provided the same opportunities for Stacey's heartfelt emoting, because seven years ago Kangaroo Island was ravaged by bush fires.Videos shot by one sheep-farming family, whose house was engulfed by flames, looked terrifying. Even in holiday mode, Stacey loves to wallow in trauma and tragedy! CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Stacey Dooley's AustraliaBut the island has had time to recover, and few people wanted to talk much about it.When Stacey pleaded for the farmer to relive the disaster for her, he just shrugged and said: 'It's hard to put into words.' And that was it. Aussies don't go in much for wallowing.She had barely more luck at an animal sanctuary that cared for orphaned roos and koalas, set up after the bush fires wiped out much of the island's wildlife. Stacey was still hoping for drama: 'I'm a bit nervous,' she declared, 'because you read horror stories, don't you, when you've sort of seen someone get boxed to death by a kangaroo.'Stacey must have been watching too much Crocodile Dundee. These joeys, or babies, were more interested in being bottle-fed and having their ears scratched.Not to be denied her dose of trauma, she joined a volunteer firefighter unit to learn how they tackled blazes. Pointing a hose, she managed to knock over a traffic cone.Travel shows that explore the harsher aspects of life in holiday hotspots can work well. Simon Reeve has presented superb documentaries, revealing the hidden economic hardship along the Mediterranean and in Central America.But Reeve sticks to his subject: he doesn't go surfing or swimming with dolphins. Stacey couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted heartbreak or high jinks. Other segments of the episode, the first of six, saw her snorkelling in the ice-cold waters and slaloming down a sand dune on a board. 'Top tier!' she gasped. 'Unbelievable!'She also went training with the local Australian rules football club, where one lad called Jack was sporting a blond Claudia Winkleman cut. Stacey couldn't take her eyes off it. 'Your hair's beautiful,' she blurted. 'Mine's a bit mullet-ish too, do you think?' Jack just beamed. A mullet Down Under is nothing to be ashamed of.