Ben Fogle to experience golden age of polar exploration in Channel 5 series

Dwayne Fields (left) and Ben Fogle in Endurance: Race to the Pole

Paramount-owned Channel 5 in the UK is sending adventurer Ben Fogle to Antarctica to re-live the Edwardian expeditions of explorers Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen.

Endurance: Race to the Pole (working title, 3×60′) will see Fogle experience first-hand some of the extremes his polar heroes endured in their quests to become the first person to reach the South Pole.

Travelling alongside polar explorer Dwayne Fields, Fogle will re-live key moments of Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen’s contrasting expeditions in the early 1900s, using Edwardian equipment, food supplies and shelter.

Fogle skied over 750km to the South Pole in 2008 but was pipped to the post by a Norwegian team. On his second visit, he will examine Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen’s achievements and mistakes, revealing why Amundsen triumphed while Shackleton and Scott failed, the latter paying with his life.

The series is being produced by October Films and also aims to draw attention to Antarctica’s unique role in highlighting our perilous ambitions for sustainability, seeing today’s stark reminders of how delicate our planet is.

Alexis Girardet is directing the series, with October Films’ MD Adam Bullmore and senior executive producer Mike Warner exec producing.

Fogle said: “This is a dream project for me. I have held a lifelong fascination with this period of heroic polar exploration and now I get the chance to experience immersive, living history myself by wearing the same clothes, eating the same type of food, pulling the same style sled and sleeping in the same canvas tent.

“This will give me a better understanding about the heroics and the sacrifices made by these brave men more than a hundred years ago in one of the harshest most unforgiving places on earth. Having raced to the pole myself in 2008 wearing modern equipment, now I get to experience the harsh Antarctic wilderness as they did.”