EXCLUSIVE: In a format that sounds like a cross between Naked Attraction and Race Across The World, UK broadcaster Channel 4 is to send Brits on a scantily clad dash across the English countryside.
Youth channel E4 is piloting competition show The Great Nature Run (working title) from Spitting Image and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver producer Avalon. Producers are currently casting for brave contestants to take part.
The show will involve two pairs of strangers being plonked in the great outdoors, where they will be stripped of all their possessions and clothes. Their mission is to race to a finish line for a charity cash prize, all while covering their modesty with objects they find on their journey.
The contestants will declare themselves at a number of checkpoints along the way, where they take part in basic subsistence challenges. Deadline understands that specific health and safety protocols have been developed to protect the participants and those they come into contact with.
The Great Nature Run is just a pilot right now, meaning there is no guarantee it will go to series. E4 has said that it is on the hunt for a new crop of “large-scale” unscripted shows as the channel looks to turn around its fortunes after its 16-34-year-old audience fell to a 10-year low level in 2020.
The Great Nature Run has echoes of two established Studio Lambert formats. Nude dating show Naked Attraction has broadcast on Channel 4 since 2016, while BAFTA-winning Race Across The World, in which teams of two race across a continent with stripped back resources, premiered in 2019 on the BBC.