Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff will front a new BBC2 show, Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week, in which contestants will be put through SAS and navy Seal tasks to find Britain’s “toughest recruit”.
Having tried his hand as a boxer and a panel game team captain on Sky’s Bafta-winning A League of Their Own, Flintoff’s next challenge will be fronting the BBC2 show, which sounds like a special forces version of The Apprentice.
Flintoff said: “I have always had an interest in the armed forces and what it takes, both physically and mentally.
“The contestants are going to be pushed to their very limits and it is going to be a great insight into what our armed forces go through on a daily basis.”
The six-part series will put participants “under intense pressure” and “push their physical and mental endurance to the limit” by drill sergeants who will presumably do a lot of screaming like this.
It promises “physical and mental challenges designed to break the most hardened soldiers”, reflecting the selection process used by the US navy Seals, the Philippines’ Navsog (Naval Special Operations Group), the Russian Spetsnaz (Special Purpose Forces) as well as the UK’s SAS.
BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw said it was a “lively new format”. “It will be fascinating to see what sort of person survives to the end,” she added.
It certainly will. The BBC, announcing the show on Wednesday, said “each new day will bring a new living nightmare”, with participants “having to endure constant exercise drills, impossible mind ‘games’, lonely enforced marches, escape, interrogation drills and pain.
“The series will give a unique insight into who will endure and why. Viewers will discover what kind of person makes it through and who walks away.”
It will broadcast on BBC2 in the autumn.
