With Bear Grylls on the hunt for new contestants for Channel 4’s hit series The Island, we look at the skills you’re going to need to survive and thrive.
After showing two islands of deserted Brits suffering without any help from the outside world, the makers of The Island are once again on the search for participants.
You might think that after seeing people feasted on by sand flies, faint with hunger, and narrowly avoid drowning, that getting people to sign up would be difficult.
Well, it seems you’d be wrong.
Tens of thousands of viewers who have spent the last two months watching the programme and saying “I could do that” now have their chance to apply.
If you’re one of them, here’s what you need to do to get on the show, and survive.
Warning: some of these video clips contain swearing and graphic scenes.
1. Commitment
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SKgRD4TKD2E
If there is one thing that two series of The Island has taught us, it is that you need a lot of commitment to survive.
The first few weeks weeds out the weak, and if you’re going to avoid that humiliation, you’re going to need will power.
You’re going into an environment where you will often be without food, water or shelter, pelted by torrential rain and dried to a crisp by the baking heat.
If you’re planning on applying, you need to be honest with yourself, and consider if you have what it takes.
2. A useful skill or an office job
Going on past participants, your best chance of getting on the show is if you’re a cameraman, a doctor, or an office worker.
Cameramen/women are obviously needed to record the ordeal, while every show has also featured a medical professional to help stitch up mishaps and assess the deteriorating health of the contestants.
If you’ve no outdoor experience and no survival skills, you’ve got a decent chance of making the team.
Bear Grylls types need not apply.
3. Excess weight
https://youtube.com/watch?v=X0i2mOBBXQQ
Unlike most other situations in life, going on to The Island with a love handle is a good thing.
If you’ve been trying to shed a few stubborn pounds, The Island is just the place for you!
Due to the huge amount of calories burned doing each daily survival task in the scorching heat, coupled with the lack of food, the problem quickly becomes keeping any weight on.
Your chances of avoiding (or delaying) starvation are improved by having a bit of a pot belly, so eat up before you get on Bear’s boat.
4. A diplomat
The Island is a frustrating place, and it’s not uncommon for tempers to flare.
Adding in exhaustion, hunger, and frequent disappointment, and those moments of raised blood pressure can become explosive.
In every series of the show, there have been tense moments of conflict.
It makes for great TV, but it can be disastrous for your chances of survival.
As we’ve seen in both series and on both islands, divided teams do half as well and united ones.
So try to be the peace-maker, not the war monger.
5. A fire starter
The most pressing task when you arrive on The Island is starting a fire.
It keeps you warm and gives you something to cook food on. But most importantly, it allows you to sterilise water.
As Bear Grylls loves to point out, without litres of water each day, the inhabitants will die of dehydration.
If you can start a fire, you’re giving yourself a fighting chance to survive.
So get practicing.
6. A lack of compassion for animals
Man cannot live on yucca alone.
There are many options for food on the island, but none of them are easy.
If you’re lucky enough to stumble across yucca, that’ll fill your belly.
But you need more than just yucca you need a meal.
And sometimes that meal is going to be a piglet or a bird.
The women on series 2 made the cardinal sin of becoming attached to the pigs, making it much harder to kill them.
They did the deed and enjoyed their pork, but they found it far harder than the men’s successful slaying of a crocodile.
Being willing to end an animal’s life is an important part of survival.
7. A work ethic
A survivalists day is never done.
Each day you have to collect water, cut down wood, maintain the fire, catch fish, forage for food…
And in the scorching heat on less than 1000 calories a day, that’s not an easy task.
But it has to be done, and if you slack off, someone will always be there to point it out.
8. A willingness to eat and drink anything
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LDpVgGDXnGE
The Island is like an endless ‘I’m A Celeb…’ Bush tucker Trial.
While killing a pig might make you a bit squeamish, drinking boiled water from a swamp or eating cooked scorpion might tip you over the edge.
But there’s sustenance in everything, and you need to be willing to eat it all.
9. Have something to prove
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Gy2OHK4sMcY
Having something to prove to yourself or other people can be a great motivator.
The most determined survivors on The Island have wanted to prove something to themselves.
Of course, the weakest, most useless members have too, but they haven’t been able to prove anything.
If you can harness those emotions, it will make you and your spirit much harder to beat.
So use that and keep it with you.
10. Be a little bit bonkers
If you’re seriously considering putting yourself through the ordeal of being on The Island, you probably already qualify as ‘bonkers’.
It is hard really hard.
And it’s not for everyone.
But if you are bananas enough to want to do it, good luck to you.
If you make it, we’ll all be watching you on series 3, saying “I could do that!”
– So now that you know what you need to do, here’s where you need to go:The Island with Bear Grylls.
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