‘Terrified and nauseous’: I played Channel 4’s most savage show yet

It’s the end of May.

I’m in the depths of the Bulgarian wilderness, three hours away from Sofia airport, with little sign of civilisation for miles and miles.

I’m here because, for some inexplicable reason, I’ve been convinced to see how I would survive playing Channel 4’s daring new TV show, ambitiously coined ‘the real-life Hunger Games’.

It’s called The Hunt: Prey versus Predator, a high-octane dog-eat-dog contest which hurls 12 players into the wilderness for an extensive game of cat and mouse.

On the battleground, players prove their worth with ability, stamina and quick-thinking, but back in base, their greatest weapon is their charm.

The Hunt has finally launched on Channel 4, and after watching the first three episodes, what you see on screen barely scratches the surface.

After an hour’s gameplay, it’s abundantly clear I would not be cut out for a fortnight of adult hide and seek in the woods being chased by bloodthirsty rival contestants desperate to sink their teeth into £100,000.

I’ve left the comfort of my cosy flat with next to no information about what this day would entail, but I arrive in Bulgaria to torrential rain, after days of downpour and am warned my running trainers and shorts will not be adequate gear for whatever is in store.

I am then told that in the morning, I will be driven to a secret location where, as the title suggests, I will be ‘prey’ chased by a ‘predator’ and see how I fare in a game called The Drop, one of the many challenges contestants will play on the show.

What did Metro think of Channel 4's The Hunt: Prey vs Predator?

Read Adam Miller’s three-star review:
The Traitors has both revived reality television and simultaneously killed it.

In the four years since it became the most successful television format in the world, there have been countless attempts to recreate its magic using almost exactly the same ingredients: betrayal, paranoia and people dramatically whispering in corners.

None have come close to matching its might, but it’s become increasingly exhausting watching them fail.

Channel 4’s The Hunt: Prey vs Predator is the first reality series I’ve seen in this tedious post-Traitors era that actually feels like it’s carving out its own lane – harking back to a time before we collectively decided that Claudia Winkleman gliding around a Scottish castle with three cloaked murderers was the absolute peak of British television.

Read Metro’s full The Hunt: Prey vs Predator review here

Will I be thrown out of a plane?

Hurled off a bridge?

The possibilities are never-ending and become increasingly terrifying the more I think about them.

Thankfully, I’m swiftly assured there will be no falling from the sky at a great height, and I can sleep easy knowing the most challenging part of my day won’t involve a parachute.

After a nauseous drive along Bulgaria’s windy roads, I arrive at what appears to be a military base and whisked off to wardrobe, where I am dressed like a Power Ranger without the power, a tablet strapped to my arm along with a bright blue padded bib, which I assume is for protection… but I’m soon told it will serve no protection whatsoever.

Great.

I am the prey, and will be in a game of cat-and-mouse, chased by predators wearing red bibs while trying to find a challenge, complete it, and bank a few grand without getting caught.

With five godchildren, I am fairly adept at hide and seek and take it more seriously than any grown adult should.

This, however, is another level that I’m not sure I’m qualified for.

My competitors and I are whisked off again in a four-by-four, which slides along the swampy, muddy ground, which has been almost obliterated by weeks of storms.

If this machine was purposely built for wading through the most tumultuous terrain is struggling to get us to where we need to be, then I don’t stand a chance.

Eventually, we arrive at what we’re told is ‘The Glade’, a circle of podiums where we each stand in silence, sizing up the competition until the device on our arms, called a ‘gauntlet’, alerts us to say it’s all engines go, and a map pops up with vague directions to find ‘The Drop’.

We scramble off our podiums, each of us looking as lost as each other, dashing as fast as we can through swampy ground to find the ominously titled game through the thick of a forest.

Eventually, I see in the distance, blue neon lights – here we go and, as promised, no plane or sign of an actual drop in sight.

Instead, I need to stand in the middle of a constructed circle with 16 cobalt blue rods dangling above me.

The rods will fall in a predetermined order, and to win £5,000 I need to catch five rods and get out of there before a predator finds me.

It sounds straightforward but I have seen many a player traumatised on The Cube and know full well these games that sound so simple can send players into terminal despair.

POLL

Do you think you could win The Hunt: Prey vs Predator

• Definitely, I'm a survivor

• No, it sounds way too tough

• Possibly – who knows?

Suddenly being thrown out of a plane doesn’t sound so bad.

After my one triumph, the rods get their vengeance.

Suddenly, it looks as though the prize money is out of my grasp until there are just a few remaining, and it becomes infinitely easier to decipher which one will fall next.

I catch four back-to-back and feel like Rocky Balboa on the Philadelphia steps.

Sadly, I am just a guinea pig and that £4,000 is just a fantasy… but still.

A win is a win.

Playing The Hunt was more exhilarating and exhausting than I could have possibly imagined and we spent a pathetically short amount of time in the arena compared to the 12 contestants who make up the very first series of one of Channel 4’s most ambitious shows.

I’m intrigued to see how the real players fare in the actual game with so much money at stake and such intensely long gameplay.

For the rest of the afternoon, I sit watching a live feed of an actual hunt, and for the entire four hours, I was completely gripped.

At this point, The Hunt is down to its final five players.

I have absolutely no idea who they are or how they got so close to the end, but even with zero context, I cannot take my eyes off the many screens before me, even for a second.

It’s an extraordinary feat to watch.

With more than 200 crew members, it’s a colossal operation which takes athletic fitness to operate.

Every member of the production is frantically running around such a vast and torturous landscape, with the contestants too – and without the incentive of a £100,000 prize.

Just the goal of making ambitious television.

The hunts go on for hours, each player manoeuvring around the arena.

Prey are sneakily looking for challenges like The Drop to win money, the predators hoping a catch will stumble into their range.

It’s a tension like no other.

Even watching from miles away, you could hear a pin drop as we all anxiously watched my new hero Shelley aimlessly wander around as though she’s on a completely different programme.

I feel so lucky to have been able to watch The Hunt play out live.

The chase itself is genuinely so exhilarating to watch.

It’s only a shame that viewers won’t be able to appreciate the sheer scale of the forest, the exhausting duration of the hunt itself and the relentless tension that simmers throughout,from the moment they aggressively launch themselves off The Glade to the moment they get back onto it for safety when the chase has ended.

If my brief stint as prey proved anything, it’s that The Hunt is not a game for the faint-hearted – or the mildly unfit journalist in questionable trainers.

I survived my few minutes in the arena, but a full fortnight being chased through the Bulgarian wilderness for £100,000?

Let’s just say I’d probably be with Shelley, hiding behind a tree somewhere.

The Hunt: Prey vs Predator is available to watch on Channel 4.
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