Ben Shephard urges ITV viewers: ‘Don’t underestimate the physical challenge of The Summit’

Ben Shephard is no stranger to taking on a daunting task, but is set to send pulses racing with his new ITV series The Summit.

TV’s Mr Nice Guy scaled Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief in 2009 and is now presiding over a group of civilians as their own uphill struggle (literally) awaits in a new reality show.

Fourteen strangers face the daunting challenge of climbing a mountain in the rugged Alps of New Zealand to potentially pocket a £200,000 prize.

Expect twists, turns and treacherous terrain as participants are also tasked to eliminate fellow competitors along the way.

Among the line-up is Warren Furman, aka Ace from the original Gladiators, and Afton McKeith, daughter of health guru and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! icon Gillian McKeith, and an ex of Brooklyn Beckham.

‘The physical challenge is not to be underestimated. Not one of these people had climbed a mountain in the past,’ the 51-year-old told Metro and other press ahead of the show’s launch.

‘By the time you get to the snowline, they are in crampons with ice axes, climbing up glaciers, roped together in case anybody falls off. It was jaw-dropping what they had to do.’

And Ben’s brain is already whirring with possibilities about who from his ITV family he would cast in a celebrity version.

‘I’d throw Joel Dommett in there in a minute. He would be fantastic. Cat would be bang up for it. She is really game, she’s got young boys, so she likes a bit of camping, I think,’ he said.

‘[Kate] Garraway would be awful. She wouldn’t even find her way out of the airport to get to the hotel at the start. She’d be absolutely hopeless but brilliant telly.

‘Dermot [O’Leary] would be brilliant, and Alison [Hammond] would be cheering everybody on. She’d be dancing all the way up.’

The 51-year-old has plenty of star-studded names to pull from his pocket from the stable over at ITV, where he’s also familiar with the demands of hosting.

In 2024, he and Cat Deeley were drafted in to permanently replace scandal-struck Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on This Morning.

While the pair found their feet at the helm of ITV’s daytime staple, ratings suffered a sudden dip, with some questioning the hiring.

‘[You] sort of take it in your stride, really. We love doing the job that we get to do and understand that there is a lot of ownership of the show… because of the viewers that make it work,’ Ben said.

‘I welcome it. I enjoy doing what we’re doing and making sure we are delivering a show that the viewers want to enjoy and watch, and also that part of it is not something I massively dwell on.’

The dad of two, who shares sons Sam and Jack with long-time missus Annie, learned to shrug off the initial criticism.

‘I just have to get home and realise I’ve got three loads of washing and my teenage sons to tidy up after,’ Ben said.

‘There are bits of it that I can concern myself with… that I can listen to and take on board, stuff I think is interesting, or valuable, and then forget about the stuff that’s not.’

A version of this article was originally published on February 2.

The Summit premieres Tuesday February 10 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.

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