David Mitchell is back to preside Outsiders season 2 featuring six new comedians who must demonstrate their survival skills.
Jessica Hynes, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Phil Wang, Maisie Adam, Darren Harriott and Joe Wilkinson are the six famous faces living in woodland and teamed up in pairs as they compete to see who has the best skills and ingenuity to survive and build a new post-apocalyptic society.
Erecting a tent in extreme weather conditions, creating an edible meal from unlabelled tins and composing a fanfare to entertain David are just some of the challenges facing the comedians as the show, filmed in the woodlands of Hertfordshire, returns for a second series.
Here in an exclusive interview, David Mitchell who is judging their efforts and awarding badges to those who impress, tells us about the capers in store…
What would your own survival skills be like post-apocalypse?
David Mitchell: "Absolutely terrible. The entire premise of the show is I don't believe that products of a society such as ours, especially comedians, would ever be able to cope. The extent to which the people on the show are not terrible amazes me!"
Which of this year's batch of comedians impressed you with their ingenuity?
"I think Jessica Hynes is the one with the most survival nouse. She was a very good knot-tyer and excellent at putting up a tent. Joe brought a kind of neo-1970s energy with him. It felt like he could have time travelled from an episode of On The Buses."
The comedians all have to camp in the woods for the duration while you slip off home! Did you feel a bit guilty about that?
"The woods are a 45 minute drive from my house, that was indeed key to my involvement in the show. I’ve never been camping. I once stayed in a tent in a friend's garden when I was about 13 and I didn’t enjoy it. Thankfully we are blessed with living on an island covered in buildings."
So how do the celebs fare with an entirely outdoor existence?
"Although they are in tents they do have access to decent plumbing off-camera. Right from the start, I wanted to make it clear to any potential contributors that it’s not an endurance or reality show and we’re not trying to stitch them up or catch them unawares. It’s supposed to be fun and entertaining. We want them to go away and tell other people it’s a nice gig so we can hopefully do it again."
One task that looked particularly frustrating was creating an edible meal from unlabelled tins without the use of a tin opener…
"Yes, that had a real smack of the post-apocalypse. You can imagine going into a superstore and finding a pile of unidentified tins. The food they created was entirely unpalatable apart from the tinned peaches. Tinned peaches and pears covered in evaporated milk were a regular pudding of my childhood. I slightly miss that!"
How would you describe your judging style on this?
"Erratic and mild. I like to be a feeble and untrustworthy authority figure. I was never in the cubs or scouts even though I had ample opportunity. My view was, ‘I have to go to f***ing school all day. Why would I want to go to another organized thing in the evening when I could be watching television!’"
What were your favourite challenges in this series?
"I enjoyed the one where they had to create a fanfare. It’s not all about the practical skills of survival, we’re trying to build a post-apocalyptic society from the bottom up and so we need things to keep us sane like entertainment. They came up with songs about me, one of which was rather rude but very worth hearing."
Who would you like to see being put through their paces in future series?
"I think Bob Mortimer and Roisin Conaty would be great. I would love my Would I Lie To You colleagues, Rob Brydon and Lee Mack to do it but I don’t think they’d agree. Lee’s actually got a campervan and likes a bit of outdoor stuff so he’d enjoy it more than Rob, but it would be funnier watching Rob NOT enjoy it."
Outsiders starts on Wednesday, November 16 at 10 pm on Dave.
