Ben one of the first reality TV stars to make it to the mainstream media, it seems years ago that he was ‘Castaway’ off the coast of Scotland in a precursor to Big Brother. Unfortunately he has plagued our screens ever since on country file, Extreme Dreams and other programmes.
Ben Cracknell needs no introduction, one of the most highly decorated Olympic Athletes ever, he was joined by Ben FOgle on his last big challenge programme was to Row the Atlantic, which we all got to see the BBC short series, Through Hell and High Water, which documented there epic effort to not just row but race across the Atlantic.
In there latest challenge the pair, are going to attempt to Race to the South Pole, which seems ridiculous, as far as I am concerned the last time people raced there Scott had to say, “I am going outside, I may be sometime!”. In the first programme that is documenting there attempt, I was a little disappointed as there wasn’t one clip of them in Antarctica, instead there was just a series of training runs for the event, and the dilemma of having the first celebrity who was going to join them having there American TV series rebooked, and having to find a new non-celebrity nutter to race with them to the Pole.
It was almost embarrassing watch them try to work as a team, on one of there training events. They worked less effectively together than some year 9 school groups I have worked with on team build sessions. What I was hoping for was a shining display of well trained men working like an even more well oiled machines. However I guess we will have to see how they do in the White Desert under race conditions, my hope is they do better than Bear Grylls (I really should share my Bear Story).
I guess I am going to have to wait till the next episode of On Thin Ice to see how James Cracknell, Ben Fogle and Dr Ed (Non-celebrity).