read by James Cracknell and Ben Fogle 'Men wanted for hazardous journey'.
Six three-man teams, racing to reach the South Pole in temperatures as low as minus 40. James Cracknell, Ben Fogle and Ed Coats beat the Norwegians to conquering Antarctica, almost a century after Amundsen and Scott.
The race itself is of course a thundering adventure, but it is the preparations, the training, the set-backs, the personal dramas which make this an epic story in many ways. The sheer emotions of the individual stories - Fogle's tropical disease, leishmaniasis, treated with chemotherapy and a three-week hospital stay, the loss of Fogle and Marina's baby, team-mate actor Jonny Lee Miller's replacement, the temperamental, physical and psychological differences amongst the crew and their support teams. All make for a brilliant and spellbinding seven hours of great audio - Cracknell and Fogle taking it in turns to relate the fraught, sometimes funny, but ultimately triumphant tale of Man's determination to win against the greatest odds.
Cracklingly good.
* * * *
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