Bare Necessities (TV series)


Bare Necessities is a 2000-1 BBC2 television survival reality show produced by Pudding Productions. The show ran for two series and can still be seen on the golden oldies repeat channels.

Plot

Co-hosted by crew-cut lad's-lad Ed Hall and former commando survival expert Hugh McManners, two teams of three were deposited somewhere dire for a week, to survive, eat nasty food, and perform demanding tasks, being judged daily by Hugh for the vital points that decided which team proceeded to the five-star hotel holiday, and which remained in self-induced squalor.
The teams were job-oriented, pitted appropriately: the worthy nurses slogged it out in the Mexican jungle with the devious and anarchic estate agents; the persevering taxi drivers met the ebuliance and over-confidence of the hospital doctors on a remote Crete beach; the bland bank managers were out-classed by vegetarian, camel-head-eating students with body piercings in the Sahara, the models were screen-tested by die-hard lawyers on a Phuket desert island; the builders made collapsing shelters from Azores eucalyptus trees while two warring IT specialists were kept in line by a call centre manager. And so on.
The programmes were rich with useful survival tips from Hugh, plus plenty of examples of how not to do it - and the accompanying suffering. Ed's ability to emphasise the incongruity of the various events - and the often shockingly revolting food remains legendary, and spawned many similar presenters in this genre.