Agree with most of this – pantomime stuff, stupid, nonsensical decisions, you’d be horrified if anyone was watching him and taking tips.
There was a show he did a little while ago where he took celebs and pushed them way out of their comfort zone. There was a slice of the usual self-agrandising boys-own stuff – like swooping in to collect That Week’s Celeb while hanging out of a helicopter, hoiking them off the ground while the helicopter hovers… Why isn’t he just sitting in the helicopter? Why doesn’t the helicopter just land, pick up, then take off again? – but that served a purpose of getting a reaction out of TWC.
His main role in that was to be calm, supportive, encouraging, helpful and knowledgeable, while pushing TWC to find out more about themselves through mental and physical hardship.
That Bear Grylls seemed like a nice guy.
I wouldn’t choose to spend any time with him on “his turf” though, anecdotal evidence points to the fact that he spends most of his time being the other Bear Grylls, and he doesn’t seem to have a very balanced personality.