Watching celebs jump in a lake gives me chills
Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof BBC1, Tuesday Secrets From The Middle Aisle RTÉ One, Monday Derry Girls Channel 4, Tuesday
Of all the bottom-of-the-barrel ideas for a celebrity reality TV show, BBC1’s Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof scrapes it so aggressively, there’s no bottom of the barrel left. The celebs, including retired footballer Patrice Evra, sports anchor Gabby Logan, tenor Alfie Boe, and former EastEnder Tamzin Outhwaite, almost to a man and woman admitted they hate the cold.
As it happens, so do I, which is why, if the phone rang and someone invited me to jump into a freezing lake, I would tell the caller in uncompromising Anglo-Saxon what to do with him or herself. Honestly, who could be bothered? The first challenge facing the contestants (or participants – whatever you want to call them, because there doesn’t appear to be an elimination element) was to strip down to their skimpies and, yes, jump into that freezing cold lake in the Dolomites in Italy.
First, though, there was a pep talk from Dutchman Wim. I confess to never having heard of him, but he is a former record holder for swimming the furthest distance in freezing water under ice, for running a marathon in the snow in his bare feet, and for ascending Everest wearing only a pair of shorts. Fair play to him too, because I get a headache if I eat a 99 too quickly.
Wim likes to come across as a bit of a New Age mystic. He spouts a lot of guff about letting the mind conquer the fear and the cold alike, which seems pretty good advice at a time when we all panic over the heating bills, then realise we have to turn off the radiators. He clomps around in a kaftan that looks like a Peruvian horse blanket, dropping his sage Hallmark inspirational quotes with reckless abandon.
Poor Gabby Logan couldn’t breathe when she emerged from the water, while Welsh weatherman Owain Wyn Evans – you might remember he went viral playing the BBC News theme on the drums during the first lockdown, oh, 73 years ago – burst into tears at the very prospect of jumping into it.
At the half way mark, Wim disappeared, while the celebs went on to their next challenge, abseiling down a rockface head first. Strictly dancer Dianne Buswell missed her footing and crashed against the mountain with the sort of force that could do serious damage to your coccyx. No harm done, and even if there was, Wim probably could have taught her to heal it just by using her mind.
The show is presented by Holly Willoughby and Lee Mack, and without them, it really would have been unbearable. When Alfie Boe raced down the mountain like a gazelle, Mack quipped that he was being chased by Michael Ball. Yeah, okay, maybe you had to be there, but I was clutching at straws for entertainment value at that stage.
The photography was incredible, though – drones really have changed the way we see our world – so the scenery at least held my interest. Beyond that, I can’t see myself watching again. This is a programme that should be left where it deserves, out in the cold.
The most fascinating documentary of the week was Secrets From The Middle Aisle on RTÉ One, which was about two branches of Lidl, one in Dublin’s Moore Street, the other a rebuilt outlet in Tipperary Town. It was a bit odd that, since two shops were featured, both were Lidl, when one could and should have been Aldi for a bit of balance. Perhaps they said no, but there definitely was the feel of an hour-long commercial about the programme. I’m a regular shopper in both German discounters, and I confess it was intriguing to see what goes on behind the scenes, especially the effort involved in stocking a new branch.
Sad too that some of the staff said they were looked down on because of where they worked, when without them we would have had a very different pandemic indeed. Gemma Dowling, from Dublin’s East Wall, also revealed something quite shocking. On her walk home one night, she was approached by a man who recognised her from the shop and told her he would sexually assault if she didn’t give him her phone number. What sort of world do we live in? She has to walk a distance to a bus every night and should be able to do without fear.
As for the Moore Street Lidl, well, it looked a lot different to the one where I shop. Narrow aisles, no trolleys allowed, self-service tills as well as staffed ones, and lines of people that stretched so far, there literally was a traffic controller telling people which till to queue at.
Maybe I need that sort of discipline, though, to stop dawdling on the middle aisle buying things I don’t need.
Derry Girls returned to Channel 4 on Tuesday for its third and final series, and while the episode didn’t fully ignite, it did deliver one of the television moments of the year. When the girls (and boy) were taken into police custody after inadvertently assisting in a burglary at their school, a shadowy policeman entered the interview room. Naturally, I and about four million others assumed it would be Adrian Dunbar, Ted Hastings in Line Of Duty. The big shock was that it was Liam Neeson, clearly relishing every minute of his screen time. It’s a measure of just how brilliant the sitcom is that a Hollywood A-lister, albeit one who surely gets every joke, would anoint it with his presence, though perhaps just a little annoying that the biggest scene stealer of all, as always, was the peerless Siobhán McSweeney as Sister Michael.
Freeze The Fear with Wim Hof Wim spouts a lot of guff about letting the mind conquer the fear