Ben Fogle adds The Masked Singer to his wild aventures
Adventurer and broadcaster Ben Fogle will share his global expeditions in a live show during a year in which he makes several appearances on television.
The presenter of New Lives In The Wild – now screening its 21st series – will visit Sheffield's Octagon Centre on March 6 to share stories of hope, possibility and positivity, all learned from filming documentaries or tackling some of mankind’s greatest physical challenges.
Ben is particularly looking forward to visiting the city where he is co-owner of the Buffalo outdoor brand. A new two-part Channel 5 television series, Made In Sheffield, will document his purchase of the brand which was founded in 1979 by Hamish Hamilton who worked alongside soldiers and mountain rescue teams to craft a new kind of clothing.
Encounters in the wilderness of northern Sweden, jungles of Honduras, hostility of Chernobyl and mountains of Nepal form the basis of Ben’s live tour, WILD. He has spent 15 years travelling the world to meet people living extreme off-grid lives.
Ben’s most recent challenge was both physical and mental, taking to the stage as a giant, aerobics-kit-wearing Sloth on ITV’s The Masked Singer – which sees famous folk disguise themselves to perform for a celebrity panel to guess “Who’s that behind the mask?”
Despite having never previously showcased any singing talents, Ben made it to the semi-final before his identity was revealed – getting further through the competition than the likes of Strictly’s Anton Du Beke and rapper Professor Green.
“It still feels like a bit of a blur,” he says of the experience, which was filmed in October and has aired since the start of this year. “I’d had to do all my prep and singing lessons for it via Zoom while I was filming in China.
“The only person I told was my wife as I was sure she’d think I was having an affair – disappearing off without really saying why, in slightly strange outfits, every Friday…”
Being disguised as a sloth and singing is a giant leap from where it all began for Ben when he first came to the nation’s attention in 2000 as one of 36 people selected for the ground-breaking BBC Castaway series.
Reflecting on the career he has built since then, Ben said: “I think it’s all luck, but you make a bit of that yourself. I had always loved travel, nature, the outdoors – that’s why I did Castaway.
“Heading off to spend a year on an island with a load of strangers, gave me a real grounding, and a foundation of what it takes to make a simple, off-grid life, which in turn gave me the qualifications to do something like New Lives In The Wild – to spend time with people living their whole life the way I did for 12 months.”
Ben’s love of the great outdoors reaches back to his own childhood, where his time was divided between rural Dorset and central London – with extended school holiday trips to the Canadian wilderness to visit his paternal grandparents.
Tickets for Ben Fogle – WILD at Sheffield’s Octagon Centre cost £30 (booking fee applicable) from https://performancevenues.group.shef.ac.uk/event/ben-fogle-wild.
Ben is particularly looking forward to visiting the city where he is co-owner of the Buffalo outdoor brand. A new two-part Channel 5 television series, Made In Sheffield, will document his purchase of the brand which was founded in 1979 by Hamish Hamilton who worked alongside soldiers and mountain rescue teams to craft a new kind of clothing.