One of the benefits of Ireland being such a small country is that our reality television throws up the weirdest combinations of celebrities. A case in point is the new survival challenge series, Uncharted with Ray Goggins (RTÉ One, Wednesday), which kicks off with former taoiseach Leo Varadkar climbing a mountain in South Africa with Cork pop star Lyra. What next? Rappers Kneecap chugging around the Arctic for a week? Yes, that’s in part two (those presumably very cosy balaclavas will come in handy).
The only really mysterious ingredient is Goggins, of whom I’d never previously heard. He seems to be a sort of Irish Bear Grylls – minus the hippy-dippy wackiness and the obsession with staying hydrated by drinking your own wee. He is a harsh taskmaster, and initially, his unsmiley routine is annoying. “He started off very stern, didn’t seem very friendly,” says Varadkar, who might have been more comfortable with Grylls leaping out of a thicket to explain the best way to cook nettles. I know I would.
Varadkar and Lyra make for a curious couple as their adventure begins with them gingerly driving a jeep across South Africa towards the Drakensberg Escarpment – which sounds like the scene of a battle in Lord of the Rings but is, in fact, a towering peak that leads to the world’s highest waterfalls.
It isn’t just that they’re from entirely different worlds – Leo, a Kylie Minogue fan, and Lyra, an artist whose music is somewhere between Kate Bush, Enya and Florence and the Machine. They also have wildly contrasting personalities.
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Varadkar comes across as an introvert and is slow to open up to his companions. Lyra is the opposite – there is a sense of a larger-than-life individual who speaks their mind without a filter. She has also decided to climb a mountain in acrylic nails – the bravest thing anyone has done in the Irish music industry since U2 tried to go techno.
Goggins chimes in with some on-the-hoof psychological assessments. “Leo isn’t ready for this,” he remarks. “He says what can go wrong first rather than what can go right. That can be a chore if you’re up a mountain in Africa.”
Varadkar does eventually let his guard down. “My friends say I’m slow to warm up to people,” he says. “It’s much easier on this trip.”
Halfway up the mountain, the three begin to bond (not having much else to do). Varadkar recalls the verbal abuse he would receive as taoiseach. “A woman came up to me in a bar and told me her sister had taken her life because of me, because of the housing crisis. She got quite aggressive ... The longer and longer I was doing it [being in politics] the less I was enjoying the upside.”
Lyra, for her part, talks about her struggles with the music industry and its bizarre beauty standards. “I didn’t get to the size they wanted me to be,” she says, revealing she has experienced bulimia. Varadkar chimes in with encouragement. “I can’t believe the industry didn’t believe you look like a pop star,” he says. “You climbed a mountain in those nails.”
Uncharted never satisfactorily explains who Goggins is or why he’s qualified to send Leo and Lyra up an escarpment in South Africa beyond saying he’s a “former special forces soldier”. But what kind of soldier? Whose special forces? An internet search reveals he spent 17 years in the elite Army Rangers and now writes self-help books – but the series could have gone further filling in those blanks.
The episode ends with Varadkar and Lyra back at sea level, the better for their experience. Next week, it’s Kneecap in the Arctic. Considering the heat they’ve been feeling recently, a trip somewhere cold and away from social media will no doubt be appreciated.
