Take ten celebrities and shut them in a freezer for eight weeks. Brilliant. Why is this the first we're hearing of this master plan? Surely some kind of Nobel Prize is in order. Oh, hang on. It turns out this is a format for a reality TV show (called 71 Degrees North) and not, as we'd hoped, a cunning scheme to cleanse the globe of star-chaff like Shane Richie and Gavin Henson. It's disappointing news. Still, we suppose a chance to watch smug semi-famous folk morph into sobbing, furious popsicles has to be worth a look.
The group, who include ex-Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq and grating garden designer, Diarmuid Gavin, are delivered to a starting point somewhere in Norway's bit of the Arctic Circle. Team leaders are elected and subordinates snatched from a line up who look as likely to survive two months of snow living as a pack of hypothermic camels. Surely it'll take mere seconds for body temperatures to plunge, tempers to fray and the spats to start. Provided that the minus double-digit climate doesn't render their jaws immobile.
First off, our snowmen and women (all still nauseously gung-ho at this point) are told that their initial challenge will be a two-day, 30-kilometre dog sled trek to nowhere in particular. It doesn't sound too testing but Shane quickly assesses that the dogs' lack of English language skills is a problem. Yet somehow they battle through.
The fastest team are rewarded with a posh feed and a stay in a luxury hut with their own bed and a hot shower. But the first night is a baptism of ice for everyone. Huddled in camp, an alternately tetchy and ferocious Lauren Socha (Misfits) announces that she feels sorry for igloos. Her baffled teammates force a nervous laugh, which quickly switches to a charitably energetic one when they realise she means Eskimos. But you can see that some of her shrewder compatriots, like Andrew Castle, already have her pegged as the dangerous fool whose temper and innate simplicity mean she'll occasionally leave camp with her snow boots on her hands, and perhaps one day strop off and be eaten by a seal.
Task two is somewhat more testing than a gently meandering husky ride. The contestants have to swim in an icy fjord for their chance to win "immunity". That's game show speak for, "The person who can paddle the furthest automatically wins a place in the next round." The losers risk being voted off by their co-celebs. Last to swim is overconfident Ken doll, Gavin Henson. As he approaches the water, his bald, tanned torso makes him look like a Satsuma strutting along a bank of cotton wool. You want him to fail but it's not certain he'll oblige. After his dip, Gav describes feeling like his organs were about to shut down, yet somehow this wasn't sufficient hardship for him to exit the water. Maybe the Welsh rugby pin-up has something about him after all. The others certainly don't.
71 Degrees North starts on ITV1 (and ITV HD) at 9pm on Saturday, September 11.
Comments