The BBC’s Easter flagship, Pilgrimage, was filmed before coronavirus took hold, and reminds us of how quickly things have changed

It’s that time of year again. The celebrity striders in the third series of BBC2’s Easter offering, Pilgrimage, have laced up their hiking boots and headed off down (which included quite a lot of up) another medieval European trail.

This year the series has its own particular and unintended poignancy: the world is in coronavirus meltdown – but when the series was filmed last spring, the pilgrims were still mingling with throngs in churches and mosques, hugging strangers and piling into tiny shrines.

The group started in Belgrade and walked, in stretches, to Istanbul, following the route, now called the Peace Road, which runs across Serbia and Bulgaria and was once taken by the armies of Suleiman the Magnificent. What are they hoping for? To get their certainties shaken a bit; to stretch a little into someone else’s experience and understanding; to be surprised, startled and occasionally even delighted by an unexpected encounter.