Phillip Schofield can be seen saying “disaster has struck” as his tent is destroyed by strong gusts of wind in a new clip from Cast Away, which sees him return to TV for the first time since 2023.
In the clip from the upcoming Channel 5 show, the 62-year-old can be seen settling in for the night after his first day in Madagascar, which sees him setting up his tent, building a fire and hunting for food.
In the middle of the night he is woken by a storm.
In the clip, Schofield says before going to sleep: “I want to catch a fish that makes me feel full. I am literally going to sleep as I’m holding this.
“Anyway, there we go and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The video then cuts to him waking up later in the night and saying: “Bloody hell, disaster has struck, howling wind blowing through everything, it’s taken out all the front (of my tent).
“This (the tent) is about to tear itself to pieces and there’s still every possibility that it will. I wasn’t expecting that.”
The three-part show, Phillip Schofield: Cast Away, will see the former presenter marooned on a tropical island off the coast of the African country with a handful of cameras, following his near two-year absence from the limelight.
In an earlier trailer for the series, the former This Morning presenter acknowledged not disclosing an affair with a younger colleague was “unwise” but questioned whether it should “absolutely destroy someone”.
In the teaser, he says to camera: “I’ve been cast away on a desert island, completely on my own, all I have is camera gear, and I can say whatever I want about whatever I want.
“It’s my chance to tell my side of my story. I know what I did was unwise but is it enough to absolutely destroy someone?”
The earlier clip was interspersed with scenes of Schofield trying to find food and survive on the island.
Announcing the new series on on Instagram on Wednesday, more than a year on from his resignation from ITV last May, he called the show his “story of survival, both on a desert island and off it”.
The series will see the former presenter getting to grips with isolation across 10 days and nine nights.
Channel 5 said the experience of Schofield being left alone allows him to “confront the challenges of total isolation, the forces of nature and provides the time to battle within his own mind as he explores his own controversial story”.
Speaking about appearing in the series, Schofield said: “This is most definitely a first for me and the only thing I felt compelled to do. It appealed to me on so many levels.
“I’ve recently had a lot of time to think about my life, what went right and what went wrong, but I’ve always had the safe arms of friends and family wrapped around me. This time it’s just me, no phone, no comforts, no crew and only lip balm as a luxury.
“I’m looking forward to exploring the island, trying to tie knots to secure my shelter and foraging and fending for myself in the wild … with no help. Maybe I’ll be Robinson Crusoe, or maybe I’ll just be Tom Hanks’ Wilson and quietly drift off into the wild blue yonder.”
In the 2000 film Cast Away, Tom Hanks’ character Charles “Chuck” Noland crashes in the Pacific Ocean and has to fend for himself for years with only a volleyball for company.
Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a shipwrecked sailor stranded for decades, and meeting mutineers and natives on an island.
During the first season of Cast Away, comedian Ruby Wax was left on an island in the Indian Ocean for 10 days and had to document her own story with body and hand-held cameras.
Oldham-born TV star Schofield receives a training day with a survival expert prior to arriving via boat, as he is “left to navigate his new island home alone, attempting to scavenge for mangoes, find a water source and catch fish”.
Schofield will also “reflect on some of the tougher times in his life” amid days “without any meaningful food”.
Hungry, he will try to catch crab for dinner at dusk before getting lost “in the dense jungle with only a headlamp and no idea of how to get back to camp”, Channel 5’s episode description says.
Schofield said last year he had “lost everything” after admitting to the affair, and that the fallout had a “catastrophic effect” on his mind.
An external review, revealed in December, found that ITV made “considerable efforts” to find out the truth about an alleged relationship between the presenter and a runner on This Morning in 2019 but was “unable to uncover the relevant evidence” until Schofield’s admission in late May 2023.
Carried out by Jane Mulcahy KC, and commissioned by ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall, Schofield “reluctantly declined” to take part because of “the risk to his health”.
Holly Willoughby, who was a co-host of This Morning with Schofield for more than a decade, left the daytime programme in October 2023 but continued at ITV by presenting Dancing On Ice with Stephen Mulhern, instead of her former on-screen partner.
In light of his TV comeback, his former This Morning colleague Vanessa Feltz acknowledged that his reality TV appearance could be a "risk," but she is fully backing him.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk, she said: “I just think whatever he does to make him feel better, I wish him all the luck in the world. Obviously I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know how he copes in isolation for all those days, and whether it turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing.
“Any reality TV show anyone does is a risk, that’s the whole point, you could come out brilliantly and everyone could fall in love with you and you could impress them to the max.
“But he is a very seasoned TV professional, and I really hope that it’s the right thing for him, and it does him the power of good, that he personally enjoys it and that the viewers enjoy it and that it makes him feel better and it makes everybody feel better. That’s what I would like. I’d like it to be a success.”
Feltz, who joined the ITV show in 1992, admitted she had "no idea" that Schofield would be making his TV comeback on the Channel 5 show, after speculation had linked him to Celebrity Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity.
Since the announcement, she said she has not contacted him and does not plan to.
