Celebrity Race Across the World review – Kelly Brook’s checkpoint sprint is white-knuckle stuff

For reasons that are not always entirely clear, celebrities love doing weird challenges on TV: eating live spiders; falling backwards out of a helicopter into open water; hunting down ghosts with Rylan Clark. There are so many of these shows, in fact, that it can be hard to remember what some of these celebrities did before they entered the British TV challenge circuit. Was she on Gogglebox? Did he do Towie? Why are they now fumbling around in total darkness in an underground bunker with Chris Eubank and Danny Dyer? It’s anyone’s guess. And on it goes.

Now to Celebrity Race Across the World, which – although it sounds like many of the aforementioned – is quite a bit different. Yes, there are celebrities. And, yes, they are doing a weird thing on TV. In this case, trying to get from northern Brazil to southern Chile in pairs, in the shortest time and without smartphones or bank cards and with just £36 in cash a day. But it is a lot less eye-roll inducing and a lot more wholesome than that sounds. This is not about watching C-lister reality show veterans get grumpy in the jungle because they can’t get a balayage. Just as in the civilian version, you will find yourself caring about these people, rooting for them to succeed.

Each pair appears to be doing the show for personal reasons. TV presenter Jeff Brazier, 45, wants to spend more time with his teenage son, Freddie. As they have got older and busier, they have felt a little disconnected from one another. At 19, Freddie is not yet sure who he is or wants to become. He is hoping this will help him find out. “I want you to step into making decisions for yourself instead of just going with the flow like you usually do,” Jeff tells his son. Later, Freddie speaks to the camera. “Right now I’m trying to figure out what I want to do with my life,” he says. “It’s quite tough. Who is Freddie Brazier? I don’t know.”

For broadcaster Kelly Brook, 44, and her husband, Jeremy Parisi, 39, it is about doing something out of the norm. Kelly says she is often painted as a super-glam pin-up who does calendar shoots, but says: “It’s all an illusion; that’s not who I am at all. Kelly Brook doesn’t actually exist!” For BBC Radio 2 DJ Scott Mills, 51, and his then fiance, now-husband Sam Vaughan, 35, the show was a chance to embark on a huge challenge before getting married. And for actor Kola Bokinni, 32, and his cousin Mary-Ellen, it is an opportunity to go on an adventure together. “We’ve always navigated life together, but his career’s really taking off so I don’t get to see him that often,” says Mary-Ellen, who grew up with Kola on an estate in Peckham, south-east London. “To go on this adventure together … it’s going to be amazing.”

The pairs navigate their way through backpacker hostels, 14-hour bus rides and treks through grass fields in blazing temperatures. But some of the most touching moments are the small and unexpected ones: Freddie holding a trembling chicken to his chest, eyes squeezed shut in joy and trepidation. Kelly wading through brackish water between mangroves, helping to plant new saplings in the rain. Kola and Mary-Ellen plunging into the cool desert lagoons that have temporarily gathered between sand dunes in Lençóis Maranhenses national park in Maranhão, north-eastern Brazil. As happens when watching all good travel reality shows, you will find yourself wondering if you could do this too. There is a reason travel agents experienced a boost after the show’s recent growth in popularity. Watching nature on screen, you will want to reach out and touch it.

Of course, because this is entertainment, plenty of elements appear set up and preplanned. Each team seems to have accommodation sorted in various family homes, and the race to the first checkpoint is so close that it is hard not to suspect that it was at least partly orchestrated. But this is television, and if everyone was left to their own devices with no background help, then who knows where they would end up. It certainly wouldn’t get the heart racing in quite the way it does. “Come on, give me your bag,” pants Jeremy, the sound of stabbing strings pounding in the background, as Kelly speeds down a cobbled street in harem pants. You will be white-knuckling the sofa as if their life depends on them making that checkpoint.

In this era of endless recycled formats and a growing disillusionment with the concept of “celebrity” more generally, it can be easy to feel cynical about the idea of radio presenters and actors putting themselves through their paces to prove they are just like us. But Celebrity Race Across the World has an unusually calming and warming effect on the heart. It helps that they have chosen a bunch of really likable people. There are no villains, and no egos disguised beneath the faux-humbleness that those brushed with fame tend to inhabit. This is more about people finding themselves and each other as they experience things they wouldn’t usually. And it is utterly, wonderfully captivating.

Celebrity Race Across the World aired on BBC One and is on BBC iPlayer.