On the box: On Thin Ice | The Madoff Hustle | Inside Nature's Giants

Published on Friday 3 July 2009 16:24

ON THIN ICE BBC2 Sunday 9pm THE MADOFF HUSTLE BBC2 Sunday, 7pm INSIDE NATURE'S GIANTS Channel 4 Monday, 9pm

IN ON Thin Ice, their latest telly adventure, James Cracknell and Ben Fogle are going to be enduring -50C and all that that may entail, including hypothermia, frostbite, severe exhaustion and the very real prospect of death.

We, on the other hand, must be able to withstand hugging, joshing, pranks, each addressing the other as "mate", more hugging, farting contests, ear-tweaking, arguments over the all-time best Steps song, towel-flicking, lots of things being described as "awesome" or "wicked" – and the early stages of delirium leading to quasi-philosophical discussions about hair-lightening leading to our heroes re-creating the Alan Bates versus Oliver Reed nude wrestle from Women In Love round a tiny camping stove. It's going to be tough, the biggest challenge we've yet faced, but if we all pull together I think we can do it.

Actually, I don't mind James and Ben. I'd far rather be stuck at the South Pole with them than Ewan McGregor and the gormless one from Long Way Down. And it's not unthinkable that McGregor could have been on this trip, repairing his battered reputation as a telly traveller. The first instalment of On Thin Ice was all about Cracknell and Fogle training for the Antarctic, searching for a third member, and hoping that McGregor's old Trainspotting accomplice Jonny Lee Miller would be the one.

You may know that ultimately Miller doesn't go. You may also know that in the 480-mile race to the South Pole, Cracknell, Fogle and A.N. Other finish… no, I won't spoil it if you don't. Pity about Miller, though. He's different from the main men, who obviously bonded in such an epic way on that rowing expedition across the Atlantic, and he'd have provided the element of surprise. More than that, he's an actor with a proper hobby, and in my experience that's rare. Most will nominate going to the flicks or the theatre – in other words, watching other actors act – as their main pastime but Miller loves marathon-running and other bonkers challenges.

This time, hugging could probably be justified on basic survival grounds. I'm surprised the scientists in charge of that virtual Antarctic experience somewhere in the English Midlands didn't suggest it. Basically amounting to a giant deep-freeze, but without any old fish fingers squashed in a corner should supplies run low, this recreated the brass-monkey conditions up ahead.

Surprisingly, there isn't a reality-show simulator to prepare wannabes for the wind-chill of post-show oblivion, a Heat-free existence in every sense, but former Castaway winner Fogle has no need for it now. He's doing fine, and if his stints on Cash In The Attic can look tiddly next to Cracknell's Olympian heroics, neither adventurer had anything to brag about when they emerged from freezing cold baths.

For a mate, indeed someone else to call "mate", the pair first tried Gordon Ramsay, but he was too busy. Miller said that if his schedule allowed he was in, though I don't imagine he was too happy with his build-up: the fact he was once married to Angelina Jolie was mentioned before any of his films.

Miller did make it to Norway for the training camp and acquitted himself well. At least your reviewer was thinking of his films, in particular Trainspotting, the junkies' Rannoch Moor away-day, and Renton's famous soliloquy which ends: "It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world won't make any f***in' difference." When Cracknell and Fogle finally get to the Antarctic, where it's the freshest of air and not much else, they might have hoped for some "awesome" and "wicked" Angelina anecdotes to keep the boredom and even some of the cold at bay. Too bad.

Last week, Bernie Madoff was described by a judge as "extraordinarily evil" and the courtroom cheered when he was jailed for 150 years for the world's biggest-ever investment scam. The Madoff Hustle told us how he did it, if not quite why.

That may have been frustrating – Madoff claimed he acted alone and so avoided testifying – but the documentary could never have been dull.

The public face of this unregulated, greedy age, Madoff could "sell sand to the Arabs". His first victims, though, were among his own kind – Jewish members of the Palm Beach Country Club (joining fee: $300,000) who, according to fund manager James Hedges, "wanted to believe they'd found the one superstar broker who'd let them shake the money tree".

When the Madoff scam was revealed – a Ponzi scheme in which he pretended to buy and sell shares – it was reckoned that those he'd duped were either rich already or desperately wanted to be, so there wasn't much sympathy going around. But The Madoff Hustle investigated the fraud through the eyes of Willard Foxton whose much-decorated soldier father William killed himself after investing his life savings in respectable funds, which in turn invested in Madoff, losing him everything.

The programme found plenty of people to call Madoff an "asshole" and a "psychopathic sonofabitch". And ex-friend and victim John Maccabee said he was "a man running away from mediocrity, winding up like his parents: that middle of the middle of the middle-class". It was made before his conviction, which may have brought some consolation to the Palm Beach victims, forced to sell their Picassos and Maseratis – but none at all to Willard.

There are few more comical sights in the animal world than elephants swimming, and few more poignant than them caressing the bones of their brothers – along with us, they're the only creatures to ritualise death. Inside Nature's Giants gave us both shots, but unfortunately the bulk of the footage was of a very dead elephant being chopped up by orange-clad scientists for an audience of veterinary students and us watching at home, over tea. Still, at least we were spared its final fart, powered by 2,000 litres of methane – yet another reason to be glad smell-o-vision never caught on.