Thankfully this proved to be an aside as the programme caught up with the five men who, in The Monastery last May, spent six weeks within the strict confines of a Benedictine order at Worth Abbey in Sussex. It was like Davina McCall telling the housemates that their daily routine was now going to consist of six church services, silent meals, study and manual labour with inner peace instead of a cash prize as the final reward.

This follow-up programme, half recap and half catch-up, saw the quintet return 15 months after their original 40-day retreat for a weekend reunion to see if their experience of living by Benedictine precepts of humility, forgiveness, contemplation and physical labour had informed their lives. Or as the Abbot put it as the reunion coincided with Epiphany: “It’s about revelation, journey and vocation.”

Peter, the retired schoolteacher, was still wary of any dogma and regarded his poetry as his “vocation”. The “high-earning, high-energy bachelor” Anthoney had ditched his job in legal publishing to become a record producer. Nicholas, the Cambridge PhD student who had found his faith turning into an intellectual exercise, was now being accepted into the priesthood.

More interesting was Gary, the former Protestant paramilitary trying to reconcile the notion of being a child of God and his past. He was now a prison speaker and charity worker in Bristol. Inspired by Gary, the recovering alcoholic Tony, who had been clinging to the abbey through repeated visits, felt he had to leave his “comfort zone”. A closing caption informed us that he was now “actively pursuing volunteer work”. But did that mean he was doing volunteer work or still looking? For the monks, the whole experience had strengthened their Benedictine principles — and they didn’t sound smug when they said it.

The Abbot thought that the public response to the series had chimed with a new public thirst for spiritual fulfilment. But The Monastery Revisited seemed like a coda to Brat Camp for the soul with tough love replaced by sympathetic spirituality and the humbling Utah wilderness transposed to the pensive tranquillity of monastic life. Catholic theology was always kept to a minimum, presumably so as not to scare away the general viewer.

Whatever one’s beliefs, the possibility of redemption is always appealing and reassuring, and where better to find it than in the attractive surroundings of Worth Abbey with the monks as selfless counsellors rather than overpaid life coaches or New Age gurus?

Even the abbey’s modern building for worship would draw approving noises on Grand Designs. Perhaps inevitably, the success of The Monastery has now spawned next week’s new series The Convent, with women replacing the men. I somehow doubt it’ll be located on a draughty, exposed mountaintop like the one in Black Narcissus.

Snow allowed for more picturesque shots of Worth Abbey but the white stuff in Kazakhstan Swings (More 4) was freezing and harsh. The art critic Waldemar Januszczak took us on a tour of modern art in the former Soviet republic, best known for horses, gas, oil and, if Sacha Baron Cohen’s Kazak reporter Borat is to be believed, punching cows. Among the performance artists featured were naked women wailing in mounds of snow, a man whose satirical swipe at the current regime is to have his face slapped, and the Red Tractor Group collective that likes to shout and dress up as mystics. Video art included a woman on a lavatory musing about Naomi Campbell and a couple having sex on a horse.

Januszczak guided us through all this in his usual strident, “Look what I’ve found that everyone else is ignoring” manner. But by the end I wasn’t certain if he admired the art itself or was more captivated by the attitude of the artists, the product of a vast land that was once a dumping ground for dissidents.

For Januszczak they were nomads, going from one wild idea to another without any thought of having a comfortable life or a secure future. And then something struck me while he visited the Kazakhstan capital of Astana — the shape of the tower that offers the best views of this expanding city reminded me of the old World Cup trophy. It’s time, I thought, to book my cell at Worth Abbey for the next four weeks.

Explore Film

• Film Reviews

• DVD

• Oscars

• Bollywood

Editor's choice

• The End: the worst movie endings ever
• Introducing The Times Proms Podcast
• Heath Ledger tipped for Oscar