You Vs the World: The Bear Grylls Guide to Never Giving Up

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I was at a Scouting event the other day and a guy came up and said, ‘I was one of the people who helped select you as Chief Scout. I’m an old man now, but 15 years on, you don’t look any different.’ Abi Elphinstone’s stories are never less than thrilling, whether taking us dog-sledding in the Arctic or living with the Kazakh eagle hunters in Mongolia. She shares the real-life adventures behind these tales, showing us just how easy it is to leap into stories of our own. Jump with Abi into her latest book Saving Neverland – a modern, magical sequel to Peter Pan, complete with moonpaper maps, frostbears and a woolly mammoth called Armageddon. The best writers are often said to be enthusiastic life-long readers, and that’s definitely the case for children’s author SF Said. A passionate campaigner for literacy, libraries and reading for pleasure, he is the writer behind Varjak Paw and its sequel The Outlaw Varjak Paw, a duology about a cat who learns a secret martial art. Said will share his love of stories with us, explaining how he went from being a young reader and lover of books to an award-winning author and campaigner for stories for all.

Basically we’d be like, “All right, Bear, you’ve got to get across this river. What are two ways you could do that?” And he’d be like, “I could try to swing across on this vine, or I could try to balance on the log and get across.” He’d know in his mind which was the better bet, the safer bet, but we’d let the viewer play with him a little bit, almost like he was their action figure. He’d do both, and then once he would do one, we had a change of clothes if he needed for continuity. We were straddling the unscripted and scripted worlds in a way I’ve never done before. Then what happens? Because on the show, he hauls himself out of the lake and the episode ends. He was really in that lake, wasn’t he? How dangerous is that? Do producers swarm him and warm him up as soon as he gets out? Did Bear end up liking the multiple versions? It feels like it could cramp his improvisational style.I always like that quote that says, ‘you never want to arrive at the end of your life in a perfectly preserved body’. That’s a waste. You want to come skidding in sideways, covered in scars, beaten up and screaming, ‘Yahoo! What a ride!’” he laughs. He shares the life lessons he’s learned along the way, and how the skills needed to survive in the wild can be used in everyday life.

Bear seems to helicopter out before anything truly terrible happens. How did you decide where to draw the line when showing the consequences of each choice?They face an uncertain future and are under constant pressure to thrive in an overwhelming and fast-paced world. You vs the World: The Bear Grylls Guide to Never Giving Up retells Bear Grylls’ most extreme adventures in a kid-friendly way.

Anyone who’s watching that discerningly can make their own assumptions. What I’ll say is, sometimes it happens naturally, and sometimes we have to push it along a bit. New Yorkers Should Line Up Behind the City’s Janitors New Yorkers Should Line Up Behind the City’s Janitors What I meant by the improvisation was, whether Bear fell off the log or not, or whether he made it across on the vine, we didn’t know which way was going to be right and which was going to be wrong until after he did it. So then we’d say, “Okay, that worked, so this moves us on to the next obstacle.” Or, “Shoot, that really screwed up. This is a dead end for the viewer.” It was a lot of improvisation. The thing I would say it’s most akin to is Curb Your Enthusiasm. We’ve got a talent who shows up in a sandbox we’ve prepared, and he improvises his way through everything. I’ve worked with Bear for five years now, and that’s his thing. You give him a sandbox and then launch him.

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What about the parts where he has to choose between two things to eat? He seems to actually eat the bad mushroom, and also the raw bird eggs. Did he find those and say, “Should I eat these?” How did that work? It’s this weird straddling of the two, right? Obviously the dog wasn’t really stranded. We created that sandbox for Bear to play in. Bear didn’t know where the dog was, so we as the producers tried to stay one step ahead of Bear. It’s much easier for him to improvise if there is some uncertainty. As we put obstacles in front of him, we’d say, “What are two ways you could do this?” And off he’d go.

Watching Bear Grylls as he jumps out of helicopters and crosses white-water rapids on tree trunks, you’d be forgiven for thinking the TV adventurer is superhuman. Totally. It was a real challenge, and there were times when I was pining for the days of the simple, linear, unscripted TV show producing. That being said, I really liked the challenge and I’d love to do more. There are so many places in the world were we could take Bear. This makes me feel better, because I poisoned him several times over the course of watching the show. We are thrilled to bring you the Programme for Schools live this year, with in-person events for pupils in Key Stage 2 on Thursday 25 May and Key Stages 3 & 4 on Friday 26 May.Correct. The cameramen stopped because they had to change batteries, and they needed a break because those cameras weigh 40 pounds. I was like, “Aw man, we should be filming this!” But it was too late to capture it. And it was for Netflix Kids, so I didn’t know how they’d feel about naked Bear Grylls. Right. But that being said, it’s a simulation. So we do want to simulate what would happen if you touched that milky substance. Bear’s tough. If you remember him from his Man vs. Wild days, you’ve seen him jump into things like that naked, with no editing. So yeah, he fell in the ice. He pulled himself up out of there. What he actually did was he stripped down, because his clothes were soaking wet, and started rolling in the snow to get the wet stuff off of him. Bydd pob digwyddiad yn cael ei ffrydio'n fyw ar y diwrnod, ac maen nhw’n rhad ac am ddim i'w gwylio eto ar Hay Player (pennawd yn Gymraeg a Saesneg). Gallwch brynu llyfrau ar y safle o Siop Gŵyl y Gelli. Bear is a number one best-selling author, having written over 90 books, selling in excess of 20 million copies worldwide. He is an Honorary Colonel to the Royal Marines Commandos, the youngest ever UK Chief Scout, and the first ever Chief Ambassador to the World Scout Organisation, representing a global family of some 57 million Scouts.