Lies, damned lies and “secret” hotels – oh, how we’ve all been fooled by Race Across the World. The BBC’s explosively popular reality series, in which pairs of participants drive, sail, or perhaps even crawl from one geographical point to some distant other, has been rocked by new insider details about the show’s production. Past winners have shared titbits on social media, revealing that they would often be put up off-camera in hotels for their own safety, and that the supposedly handler-less contestants were in fact accompanied by members of the production team at all times. Whatever next? Love Island isn’t about people finding true and genuine romantic love? I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! doesn’t feature bigtime celebrities? The Cube is actually more of a cuboid?
The revelation that Race Across the World might be lightly fudging the specifics of its premise hardly constitutes an Edward Snowden-esque whistleblowing. Nor was the information even exclusive to the ex-contestants. Discussing the filming of Race Across the World on a recent episode of his insider-y podcast The Rest is Entertainment, author-presenter Richard Osman was able to divulge some of the tricks used to film the BBC series, noting the use of a “follow car” behind each travelling pair containing security personnel and a medic, as well as technical equipment such as a spare camera and batteries. He explained that a second camera team would also retrace the steps of the racing pairs, capturing higher-quality footage of the scenery, etc, to seamlessly weave into the finished product. That’s not, however, to say that the show is completely phoney in its concept. “The couple would never see [the follow car],” Osman said. “And that’s why it’s such a great show. It feels very natural. Everything is done to make the trip as genuine as possible.” But this is almost irrelevant. The question of what is “genuine” could barely matter less.
