In the UK: Tuesdays, 10pm, ITV4
Sometimes it’s hard to be a man. Probably not as hard as it is to be a woman, what with the glass ceiling, low relative pay rates, systematic oppression by religions, etc. But it’s still hard, sometimes.
Indeed, being ‘hard’ is one of those issues that affects men more than women. Just as (apparently) you can never be too thin – or have too much hair – if you’re a woman, you can never be too hard if you’re a man.
Clearly, that’s not true though. If you live in a city, are a teenage boy and everyone has knives or guns, trying to be hard is probably going to get you killed, so it’s not always a good thing. But as books like Amazing Tales For Making Men Out of Boys, have demonstrated, in times of war or emergency, it’s a great thing to be since you’re going to end up saving lives. You’re going to be a hero.
If you draw up a hierarchy of hardness – since no matter how hard you are, there’s always someone harder than you – the SAS are going to be very near the top. Andy McNab, who led the ill-fated Bravo 20 SAS mission during the last Gulf War, has spent the last two decades writing books about fictional hard men, but now he’s fronting a new documentary series for ‘man’s channel’ ITV4 about the real deal.
Called Andy McNab’s Tour of Duty, it aims to show what it’s like for both UK and US soldiers who have been fighting in the Middle East and to show great battalions of British men what real-life heroes are like. Which is a laudable aim, even if it does involve SHOUTING EVERY WORD.
Continue reading “Review: Andy McNab’s Tour of Duty 1×1”
