TV review: Look, up in the sky, it's Superman Bear

Published on Sunday 17 May 2009 19:52

Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, Saturday, Channel 4 The Violent Highway, Saturday, BBC2

WHEN, as Ben E King foretold, the sky eventually tumbles and falls, and the mountains crumble to the sea, the one man left alive will undoubtedly be Born Survivor: Bear Grylls.

Clearly indestructible, this intrepid adventurer is a real-life Action Man. He probably even wears blue plastic Y-fronts. Impervious to fear, he tap dances on the windpipe of danger, and paso dobles with the mother of peril.

I find him simultaneously admirable and absurd; his survivalist skills are astonishing, but his reckless, declamatory enthusiasm makes him seem slightly demented. As a natural born coward, I cannot begin to understand what compels him.

Grylls's latest adventure took place in the crocodile, jaguar and poisonous snake-infested jungles of Belize: a survivalist's paradise. Our hero arrived by helicopter. Not inside the aircraft, you understand, but hanging off it, bellowing excitedly to the camera all the while. Knowing him, I'm surprised he wasn't strapped to the propellers.

As soon as he touched ground, he began navigating his way down a terrifying 700ft waterfall. At one point he slipped and almost fell to his death, the cameraman seemingly neglecting to help in favour of recording his possible demise. "That was not a good feeling," Grylls shivered, before battling on undaunted.

Once they got into the jungle, things got even hairier. "Bear," uttered the cameraman quietly. "My leg." Grylls broke into a grin. "That's quite a good sized tarantula!" he declared, as he picked it off and started banging on cheerfully about the size of its fangs. Bear Grylls clearly respects wild creatures. You could see it in his eyes when he bashed in the brains of an enormous boa constrictor, ripped out its guts and ate it for tea. Later, he devoured a hideous spider/scorpion hybrid he found in a cave. "That is a big meal!" No Bear, it's a massive insect.

There is literally nothing that Bear Grylls can't do. I wouldn't be surprised if he learns how to fly one day. At one point he even swung on a vine over a deadly abyss, even though he probably didn't have to. In fact Grylls doesn't really have to do any of this, which is what makes it all so perplexing and endearingly silly.

Since it's been revealed that elements of previous documentaries were fabricated, it's hard to take his escapades at face value. But I'm willing to accept that this time he really was surviving for two days in the jungle with only a cameraman for company.

Maybe I just want to believe it. But although enjoyable, what are these programmes for exactly? It's not as if anyone at home is ever going to find themselves in similar situations: "Now let me see, how did Bear Grylls kill that giant deadly snake again?" Great fun nonetheless.

In The Violent Highway, actress Gina McKee narrated a lurid history of the most statistically dangerous part of London. Once known as Ratcliff Highway, it's been home to around 300 years of muggings, murders and even a serial killer.

Revelling in the grisly details while purporting to be a serious study of violence in British culture, it was the televisual equivalent of one of those nocturnal city murder tours, albeit guided by McKee rather than a failed actor in a top hat.