Castaway 2000
The Press on Castaway 2000'
"The first two instalments of Castaway... were as honestly compelling as anything you'll ever see anywhere, let alone on the telly."
The Herald
"Fogle has said that he has nightmares about walking down Oxford street; for others, the year long experiment has been such a life changing experience that they cannot face rejoining the rat race."
The Guardian
"It is riveting... We should probably be grateful that it is in the hands of the BBC, otherwise at least half a dozen of the castaways would have been encouraged to have implants and liposuction before being allowed anywhere near a camera."
The Observer
"The genius of the program... is that you can't help but imagine how you'd fit in yourself. Hopefully not like some of those shown last night. The unexpected hero turned out to be a Hooray Henry chap called Ben (to be played by Hugh Grant if they ever make a film version). He kept plunging into freezing lakes and stripping his shirt off a lot, which shouldn't do the viewing figures any harm..."
Edinburgh Evening News
Although not an adaptation of a major 20th century novel, Castaway is a documentary tangent to one: William Golding's Lord of the Flies. On the first day of the millennium a group of 36 people were taken by the BBC to an uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides. They will spend a year trying to live self-sufficiently and without killing each other."
The Guardian
"It seems some people will do anything to get on the telly - including going for a year without watching it."
The Mirror
"Capri would be a nice island on which to spend a year unlike, say, Taransay, a remote Scottish island on which around 30 volunteers will spend a year as part of a unique social experiment... You can't help feeling that if you were stuck on a remote island with some of these people, you'd have strangled them after the first half hour, never mind a year, but others turn out to surprise you - in particular Ben, the picture editor of Tatler, who seems like a consummate public school prat at the beginning but proves a steely yet compassionate leader, a dab hand at sheep wrestling and possessed of a curious but by no means unwelcome urge to take his shirt off a lot."
The Observer
"Hebridean winds are so severe, nothing higher than heather dares raise a shoot. Add to that the winter darkness, basic accommodation, slaughtering your own food and a self-managed sewage system, and few of the castaways will be sending postcards saying wish you were here."
The Sunday Times
"He's stuck on an island miles from anywhere, but Castaway's Ben Fogle has got a fan club, gets sent candy by admirers and millions will be tuning in this week to see if he's got a girlfriend yet..."
Heat Magazine
"Approach the Hebridean island of Taransay by helicopter on a sunny day in late November and you could be in heaven. The sky is a dazzling palette of silver and blue and the sea below sparkles over white sandy beaches. Less than 24 hours later, you come to your senses. The Western Isles are being lashed by gales and a vicious southwesterly is turning the sea into a raging cauldron. It may be impassable for weeks. When the gusts hit 120 mph, you can't stand up and the rain falls sideways like javelins. Which makes you wonder why 4,000 Britons applied to spend the year 2000 marooned on this treeless outcrop, with only strangers for company and dry compost toilets with 6 ft 'drop chambers' for light relief."
Radio Times
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