Meeting Mr Adventure: An interview with Charley Boorman

Professional traveller Charley Boorman discusses his forthcoming speaking tour on the vagaries of travelling the world, and gives sound advice on what to do in case of an elephant stampede

Feature by Paul Mitchell | 28 Sep 2011

“If the big bull elephant with the flapping ears who’s trumpeting starts to charge in your direction, then it’s time to run. Your chances of turning the bike in time are negligible. I always position myself behind two guys, make sure there’s someone else there first.” Thus does Charley Boorman outline his strategic ‘bravery’ in the face of an onrushing herd of elephants; a bona fide potential hazard when touring the plains of Africa.

The Skinny catches up with the actor and adventurer on the eve of one such tour: a journey from Cape Town to Victoria Falls and back again, in the company of thirty or so volunteers from around the world. All very well Charley, but what about the two guys in front of you? Boorman laughs (and lest this give the wrong impression, he is an unstintingly polite and genuinely warm interviewee): “Well, you fend for yourself in that situation. It’s in the contract we all sign up to. ‘Will do enough to survive’.”

Charley is the son of renowned director John Boorman, and has appeared in many of his father’s films, including the landmark 1972 film Deliverance, about a group of four city slickers who end up experiencing a series of misadventures in the Deep South of the USA. In 1997, on the set of the Phillipe Rousselot-directed thriller The Serpent’s Kiss, Charley became friends with that film’s star, Ewan McGregor, ultimately leading to their well-received motorbike-based TV travelogue Long Way Round in 2004, where the pair biked from London to New York via Europe and Asia (They subsequently biked from John O’Groats to Cape town in the 2007 follow-up, Long Way Down).

Boorman Jr is now firmly establised as one of the faces of ‘Adventure TV’ and to that end, has just finished filming his Extreme Frontiers Canada Expedition 2011, a motorbike trip across the world’s second largest country which is due to air early next year on Channel 5. “The idea of this show was to choose one country and spend a lot of time in it, and really get to know it. It’s the second largest, yet one of the least densely populated areas of the globe. Canada is built on frontiers. People used to go fur trading and it has a long history, where people have been exploring for centuries.”

So what then, in checking the title of the show doesn’t breach the Trade Descriptions Act, were the more extreme elements of the trip? “I went up a 3000 metre mountain with the guy, Barry Blanchard, who trained Sylvester Stallone to climb [for the 1993 box office hit Cliffhanger]. I mean I’d never rock climbed before and he’s taking us up vertical cliffs, shimmying up... it was terrifying. We ended up staying the night on the mountain, with this 80-90 mph hurricane/wind rushing through. The tents were literally flat on my face at 2,500 metres up. I was thinking ‘If those pegs blow away I’ve got one hell of a fall’. I also did a rodeo ride, fell off, then the bull tried to kill me, skewer me. OK, the bull turned out to be more the size of a cow, well, maybe a baby cow, but it was still intense. I was never put on a big bull. Some of these bulls are 2,500 pounds and have just been bred to take these rodeo guys off. So mine was a small one, and it was still pretty hard. Then you watch these guys on the big ones, and you wonder how they can do that. None of them can walk properly, they’ve all bust every bone on their body and they’re all crooked and bent. That’s balls of steel those guys have.”

Travelling has always been part of Boorman’s routine, criss-crossing the globe as a child wherever his father’s career took him. Since his meeting with McGregor however, this ingrained wanderlust has become a profession. But does travelling feel different when the cameras are constantly rolling? “It feels fine to me. I guess it’s because I’ve been involved in TV and film production since I was a kid. Ewan and I were familiar with the procedures of production and putting it all together. We own the production company and everything is done between us. It’s not just a case of us heading out the door and then the filming starts, it’s everything involved in the process. I love all that.”

This autumn, Boorman adds another strand to his role as a professional traveller by touring a live show around the country. On 7 November, he hits the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh to share personal anecdotes about his experiences to date, accompanied by video clips and his erstwhile travelling partner Billy ‘Biketruck’ Ward. The show is ostensibly about “things that happen when travelling. A lot of people identify with the sense of adventure involved and will probably have done something similar before themselves. When you see other people do it, there are bits you can identify with and laugh about; those stupid, ridiculous situations you can laugh about together. Maybe even dangerous situations where you ask ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ then you can laugh about those hysterical scenarios where you wonder how you got away with it.”

Does he perhaps have any example that stands out? “One was where we were in Papua New Guinea and in this old 1950s flatbed truck with a load of other people. We got to this river where there was no bridge, and it was too high to cross. A few other trucks turned up and we were stranded there. Then we all started drinking and then an argument broke out between some of the guys on the other side of the river. They started chucking stones at each other and we were filming all this. They suddenly realised this fact and then turned on us, pulling out these big machetes. The truck driver turned to me and said ‘Charlie, pick up a few big rocks, this ain’t looking good’. So I picked up a rock from the river thinking ‘Oh god, here we go’. We somehow managed to defuse the scenario but it really was dodgy. My cameraman has been in Afghanistan and loads of places and even he thought we were in dire straits. An hour or so later we managed to cross the river and get back on our way. We just started looking at each other and started laughing. That’s the fun of travelling – when it all goes wrong and you get away with it.”

Boorman, who also spends an inordinate amount of time doing work for charity (including a role as president of Dyslexia Action, fundraiser for UNICEF and an ambassador for Movember in the aftermath of his own personal battle with testicular cancer) has one simple piece of advice for travellers in general, which is always to keep an open mind. "I think there’s an unfair opinion about a lot of countries and when you mention you’re going to Papua New Guinea or even Africa, people can tend to go ‘That’s a dodgy place, I wouldn’t go there’. ‘Oh really, have you been?’ ‘No.’ A lot of people just pick up on the bad bits of the news and people can often generalise (perhaps even consider Africa as one country. If there’s something going on in Libya that must be the whole of Africa.) Of course there are parts of Africa which are dodgy but most of it is really good. 90% of people that you meet along the way are really nice. I always find it’s the governments that fuck it up for everyone. "Apart from perhaps warzones, you can go anywhere in the world and people are nice. The thing about it is, the less people have the more people are willing to give. I’ve always been quite humbled by that. You turn up on a motorbike in a little tiny village somewhere. They offer you a cup of tea and then they give you a bit of sugar and you know that sugar is a commodity they can scarcely afford, yet they’ll happily give you three or four spoons. It’s that sort of kindness and the fact that generally it’s pretty safe to travel anywhere that’s the most exciting thing."

Charley Boorman Live, Queens Hall, 7 Nov, 7.30pm, £16 http://www.charleyboormanlive.com/