Hunting Chris Ryan (BBC1): IF I were lost in the jungle, Chris Ryan is the man I'd like to have with me.

The former SAS hero showed in the first of three real-life action adventures that he's more than capable of outwitting his enemies to get out of a tight spot.

The idea of the series is to send him on missions in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. Here, the location was the dense jungle of Honduras, where he had to retrieve vital equipment buried in a secret supply dump.

A four-strong hunter force was let loose to track him down and capture him. They might have succeeded if only the pursuers hadn't resembled Dad's Army rejects rather than the ex-special forces soldiers they were.

Ryan was on his own, filming himself with a mini-camera and only occasionally meeting up with the camera crew. There was no doubt he was doing it for real. One look at the horrible condition of his feet - he had trench foot - confirmed that.

A pursuer too was taken ill suffering from dehydration. Specialist combat medic Sergeant Ged Healy warned that heat stroke and heat exhaustion ("which can be fatal") were dangers. For some, being required to drink eight to 12 litres of water a day must have been the biggest challenge.

As Ryan fought intense heat, thick undergrowth and bad feet to reach his goal, he consistently outwitted his pursuers at every turn.

He went one way, they went the other. He confused them (not difficult, it appeared) with false trails. After finding the equipment, he booby-trapped the site - and the hunters set off the smoke grenade. In real life, they'd have been dead or injured.

Ex-parachute regiment captain Chris Plyming, who was setting the scenario, had the pursuers picked up and dropped near a rapidly-disappearing Ryan. They managed to muck that up too, abseiling from the chopper into a marshy area and finding themselves up to their necks in water. They had to be rescued and put down in a drier location.

Ryan continued to fool them as he made for a pick-up point on the beach. They missed spotting him by a matter of metres, and then patrolled the wrong part of the beach, enabling him to make a successful dash across open ground to the speed boat picking him up.

This was all good fun for the viewers, if not the participants battling heat, humidity and a poor sense of direction. It certainly made those sort-of-famous performers who braved the Australian jungle for I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here look like they were on a luxury holiday.

Published: 24/10/2003