London calling: The time I planned and coordinated a live TV stunt in central London, with speed boats and Bear Grylls!

Bear on the This Morning coach with Eamonn and Ruth, next to the window he just crashed through!

In addition deploying to remote Nepal for 2 weeks to build earthquake-resistant shelters, completing the Devizes to Westminster canoe race, and helping the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race by chaperoning the winner’s trophy around, another of the more interesting things I got involved in 2015, was to plan and co-ordinate a live TV stunt with Bear Grylls and ITV studios.

After receiving an email trail in early August with an idea to launch the new series of ‘Mission: Survive’ that saw my team speed up the Thames River in London with Bear, drop him on a sandbank next to ITV studios, for him to climb a rope and swing through the window to surprise Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on daytime TV show, ‘This Morning’. Not your average Friday morning!

How it came to be

It all started two weeks prior when I received the end of a very long email trail asking if my team wanted to be involved. Seeing some obvious overlap with the type of person we were looking for; the idea didn’t need much thinking about to see the overlap and potential for some unique brand exposure.

If you’ve not heard of him, Bear Grylls is a British adventurer, author, and television personality known for his survival skills and extreme outdoor experiences.

Grylls served in the elite 21 Special Air Service (SAS) for three years, and later embarked on a career in adventure sports, becoming the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest at the age of 23, made even more notable given that he’d had a terrible parachuting accident that almost killed him.

How I planned it

Wanting to raise awareness of Bear’s new series of ‘Mission Survive’ and our reserve military unit, through daytime television at short notice using the Thames would mean I’d need to meet with and share the concept with the Port of London authority (PLA).

Having planned many amphibious assaults in my military career as a Royal Marines officer, I was used to co-ordinating over 30 Marines on multiple boats to land simultaneously (or not), with fire support, suppression from ships located out of sight, and a whole host of other elements to be co-ordinated. This was 1 person plus 5 to land a few seconds later, how hard could it be?

Turns out trying to do anything with live television, a celebrity, some media people, in London is a lot more complex than it looks.

It turns out, the Thames has a speed limit and a team that manage it are very busy co-ordinating all the traffic that moves on the waterway to ensure the safe navigation of ships and boats, the management of port facilities, and the protection of the marine environment in and around the Thames!

Also, to keep the element of surprise in a city of 7 million people is a challenge also. And when you want to maximise the surprise on 2 people’s faces for live television, secrecy is paramount.

The other part of the puzzle to solve, is where can I have my boats in the water, so they’re ready to go and we can have a smooth exfiltration from the land with Bear and a number of media crew to document the stunt.

I search out all the possible jetties within 5 miles of the drop-off point and the number is slim, 2 or 3 options that will need a lot of engagement with for them to understand if they want to be involved or not. After a day of yomping around London glued to a phone, a little too much coffee, I get to visit the option and further narrow down the selection again. One is a children’s water sports charity with parking, a subtle drop-off point and above all, would’ve love to be involved, and the other is a commercial option who have a long, complicated management structure between me and the decision maker, so subconsciously I can already see there is a clear favourite that would benefit from this situation. A few phone calls and emails and the rendez-point is confirmed, meaning I can update the producers and Bear’s outer office that we’re on!

On stunt day

I wake up nice and early and take account of excessive delays in getting to the RV that I’ve organised. It’s London and I’ve learned to add at least an hour onto any important trip I’ve got when moving across the capital.

I arrive at the charity base and am delighted to see it’s already set-up and looking welcoming for the stunt! Our team offload the boats and get them setup and into the water in case the plan changes. It’s London, live television, and a complicated amphibious movement with many craft and people so we have to be prepared that it may not keep to the timings. Either way, we’re setup and ready, so I communicate that to all the different organisations involved.

Soon after, Bear and the team arrive and we get straight into it: meeting fans, safety briefs posing for photos, fitting safety equipment, and any final conversations with the organisations.

Then we set off. We’re ahead of schedule but I anticipate there might be issues when we’re on the water, so we burn off excessive time underneath a bridge hidden from view. It’s excited and stressful at the same time. I’m able to communicate with the boats to coordinate photographers and videographers getting the shots and sequences they need, whilst also being able to move the boats around in the event of an engine failure (they’re well serviced however can’t ever be ruled out in this instance).

I get more information from the studio team giving me a more accurate window for when they want the stunt to happen. It’s very tight, live TV is planned down to the very second, so I have to work back and apply some speed x distance x time calculations whilst listening to radio chatter in one ear, the noise of the outboard engine in the other, and a February chill to contend with also. The combination of mental and physical challenges are the ones I find most interesting to solve and find myself internally grinning at untangling this kind of unconventional problem!

We get moving on the final approach to the studios. I’m nervously checking my watch, speaking to the boat coxswains, checking my watch (again), messaging the studio team, and recalculating to make sure I’ve got it right.

We get closer to the sandbank outside of ITV studios. I’ve recce’d it and placed some of my team members there to help guide Bear to exactly the right place as his schedule hasn’t allowed him to rehearse it, so it’s on me if it goes wrong. I take no chances and use all my resources to make sure it goes right on the day.

Bear’s boat lands first and he hops off and jogs up the sand. My team greet him and point him in the right direction as we’d discussed. First part tick.

The rope gets dropped down from the roof, signalling where he needs to go.

Thankfully, he’s seen it and heads straight for it, and starts climbing.

Finally, after what feels like an age, he climbs the rope, gets to the window, pushes off and crashes through the window to applause from the crowd that’s gathered outside.

I breathe a sigh of relief, unhook my radio and slowly walk around to the studio entry to watch the interview from behind the cameras. It’s been a long few weeks pulling this all together, and I’ve been living on a diet of coffee and stress, so it’s time to relax and re-engage with normal life again!

 

Where it took place!

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