Gary Barlow was dwarfed by his best friend Eliot Kennedy as the pair stripped off and shared a boozy bath in Franschhoek for his new wine series. 

The Take That star, 53, travelled to Cape Town with his musician pal, 55, for his new ITV series about wine, called Gary Barlow's Wine Tour: South Africa.

Gary's new television series sees him hanging out in vineyards, eating great food and cooking braai (South African barbecue) with mates including This Morning's Ben Shephard, singers Mica Paris and Jane McDonald, and another old mucker from way back.

In a scene from the series, Gary and Eliot got naked and jumped into a bath together - with fans left in hysterics at the size difference between the pair.

Gary and Eliot sipped on delicious glasses of red wine as they bathed in wine bath salts and laughed together in the episode of the new series. 

In a moment which left his friend Eliot laughing, Gary said: 'Oh I needed that wee, it really warmed it up. Sorry lad, it's been a long while.

'It's quite nice in here thought I must say, it's very nice.' 

While watching Monday's episode, one fan pointed out the difference in size between Gary and Eliot as they got into the bath.

'Gary Barlow's best mate is scared, he doesn't know why he's so big,' they wrote.

'We drank a lot of wine and we had a lot of laughs,' says Gary of the series. 'And the big discovery when we arrived was that Michaela Strachan had lived there for 20 years. I never realised. 

'Michaela was on the very first TV performance Take That ever did, she introduced us on The Hitman And Her. She took me in a kayak out on Seal Island.'

Asked if the wine-lover owned a vineyard, Gary said: 'Oh goodness, no. I don't know if I'd love that, to be honest. 

'The part I play in all this is to bring my audience a choice of what I think is the best wine in the world and make it affordable.' 

And now he's talking about his passion on the telly. 'ITV suggested we make something. I said,"'I've got a 15-second pitch for you: me, friends, wine, food, travel".' They were like, "When do we start?"'

South Africa looks terrific in the show, with Gary saying: 'We were blessed every day with the most incredible scenery. That coast is just so bloody gorgeous and the vineyards have their own beauty.' 

There were tricky moments, though. 'It's a complicated country and you definitely feel it. We end in Johannesburg. 

'We know the history and it feels like a place that's healing, but hasn't fully healed just yet. We did have security with us. We have to.' 

In the first of the five episodes, Gary and his friend and songwriting partner Eliot Kennedy visit vineyards in Stellenbosch to taste and blend wines, explore the landscape in Jeeps and on electric bikes, and have vinotherapy – a spa treatment that uses grapes to cleanse the body.

They also try a Braaibroodjie, which is a cheese toastie cooked over hot coals, as Gary said: 'We went to the region of Constantia, where my favourite dessert wines come from. 

'The chef there had trained in France, lived in Asia, then moved back to South Africa. We had the simplest tuna sashimi, he put grapefruit with it, it was the most incredible thing, really delicious.' 

The second episode sees Gary stomping down grapes in the Cape Winelands and then meeting Michaela for a 'jazz safari' of Cape Town. 

They go home with musician Hilton Schilder to taste his Cape Malay Chicken Curry. 

'The chef cancelled on us at another place so me and Ben Shephard had to cook,' Gary said of the show. 

'Well, we were doing the braai, so we threatened some food with fire. That's as good as it got, but it was a good laugh.'