The fourth series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins has launched, featuring 14 celebrities including Olympic athletes Fatima Whitbread and Dwain Chambers, reality stars Pete Wicks and Amber Gill, and boxer Shannon Courtenay. The show, set in the Jordanian desert, puts participants through gruelling challenges such as exposure to CS gas and hand-to-hand combat.
New Chief Instructor Rudy Reyes, a former US Marine, leads the team of trainers including Jason Fox, Mark Billingham, and Remi Adeleke. The first episode focused on discipline, with celebrities being thrown into training with sacks over their heads. Some struggled, with Gill and Wicks singled out for early difficulties, while Whitbread was praised for her stoic endurance.
The trainers emphasised the contrast between celebrity life and the harsh reality of SAS training. Billingham stated, 'Celebrities live in a world of fake. They are in for a big shock.' However, the show also included moments of personal revelation, with Whitbread speaking about her time in children's homes and Wicks discussing his party boy image.
Despite its tough exterior, the programme still relies on reality TV tropes, with celebrities opening up about their life experiences. The first episode was described as an uneven mix of extreme challenges and celebrity confessions, but it delivers the extremity that reality audiences crave.
