The original Race Around The World back in 1997 gave us John Safran, Bondi Rescue creator Ben Davies and Academy Award nominee Bentley Dean. So what will the reboot give us?
Viewers will find out when the first episode of the new Race Around The World goes to air: six Racers, each with a video camera, and 10 days to make a short film, before it’s on to the next country.
The six Racers are Elliot, a content producer for Destination NSW; Jayden, a marine biologist and journalist; Kate, a lollipop lady who makes quirky short films; William, a data scientist; Mikaela, an artist who works part-time for Hockey WA; and Lucinda, the author and comedian better known as Froomes.
Host Zan Rowe tells TV WEEK that all six of them are “really different”.
“Lucinda, by her own admission, hasn’t travelled a lot. I think she said in the first week, the place she went to – an English-speaking country – she got culture shock from that.”
Almost three decades after the original show aired, the world is a different place. For one thing, thanks to phones, people have a lot more experience with producing their own content.
Zan has seen the Racers’ first few films, and she says the quality is “actually incredible”.
“We just filmed episode three and the cinematography in a couple of these films, you could put it up there at the Sydney Film Festival or the Melbourne Film Festival right now and it would just be mind-blowing,” she says. “They’re incredibly skilled filmmakers.
“Some weeks are better than others. They don’t always nail it. But there are some films in this where you’re just like, ‘How did they find this person and create this story in two-and-a-half to four minutes?’”
John Safran will be judging the Racers, joined each week by two other industry professionals. In the first week, one of those two is a famously straight-talking film critic.
“Let’s just say Margaret Pomeranz doesn’t hold back in episode one!” Zan laughs.
Catch Race Around The World on Sunday at 7.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
