Take three comfort-loving presenters that are accustomed to the easy life of a Channel 4 studio, ship them out of the country on a 24hr flight to the other side of the world and hurl them at the Ozzy outback and you’ve pretty much got the general gist of The Last Leg Australia special episodes. Channel 4 confirmed the details for the two antipodaen adventures just as Alex Brooker, Josh Widdicombe and Adam Hills, along with a film crew, were send down under earlier in November 2015.
The two new episodes will be 60 minutes long and feature a transplanted version of the standard show with the backdrop of Australia as its playground, but to make things a bit more interesting, the hosts will have the wild realities of the outback to contend with. While this sounds like the perfect opportunity for Hills to show his British best buds his old stomping ground, the reality is that he’s a Sydney city slicker originally, so he’s going to be just as banjaxed by the situation as Josh and Alex.
You’ve only got to look at their post your comments to see that it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Widdecombe said, “I am delighted that Channel 4 gave me the opportunity to confirm my suspicions that Australia is nowhere near as good as the UK” and Alex’s take on it all was, “in the wrong place when you can’t even relax on the toilet.” Only Adam returned with without an entirely damning report on his time in his home country, saying, “In the end, I saw a side of Australia I’ve never never come across, while Josh and Alex saw parts of me they wish they could forget.”
The special episodes will be airing in 2016, but an official date hasn’t been announced as of yet, so we’ll update things here as soon as the details get announced. Now that the brutal road trip is over, the three presenters are getting some well deserved R&R, having grappled with the harsh landscape, fear of killer wildlife and a barrage of savage flies that were determined to get a taste of The Last Leg Australia experience for themselves.
The good news for them was that they weren’t entirely on their own throughout the journey thanks to the addition of Amar Latif, their Scottish travel agent guide, who is also blind. However, you don’t get to be a travel agent without knowing at least a few of your shrimp barbied onions, so we imagine he’s probably got some Ray Mears/Bear Grylls survival mad skills to call on. Unfortunately for Hill, Widdicombe and Brooker, he’s also a thrill-ride junkie with a penchant for sadistic holiday schedules and dangerously “fun” activities for the guys to try out.
Along the way, Alex is going to have his dreams and illusions of Aussie life shattered into dry and husky pieces as he doesn’t get to do any of the things he was hoping for – visiting Ramsey Street, having a BBQ on the beach with a womans’ beach volleyball team and drinking copious quantities of Fosters or Castlemaine XXXX. Josh apparently brings his own pillow and comfort blanket in a specially selected suitcase and Adam tries his best to embrace his roots, going a bit too far in the process by the sound of things. Josh and Alex end up getting worried that he might be on for a nervous breakdown, or something along those line, turning “Is it OK?” in “Are you OK?” in the process.
On the crazy itinerary for The Last Leg Australia trip was hunting crocodiles and ferocious wild pigs, attempting to placate a hardened biker gang with similarities to cult classic Aussie movie, Mad Max, and having their very own real life Crocodile Dundee experience (Call that a leg? This is a leg.). If all of that isn’t enough to tune in for, we’re not sure what will be.
