Uncharted with Ray Goggins: Once Joe Canning thaws this tropical thrill ride is a fine full stop to a rewarding series

Irish Times

11-06-2025

It's funny how even famous people will drop their guard when suspended from a waterfall or hovering over a toilet in subzero temperatures. Such has been the lesson of celebrity survival series Uncharted With Ray Goggins (RTÉ One, 9.35pm), which across the past four weeks has brought us such unlikely spectacles as
Leo Vardakar
undergoing an existential crisis while dangling from a cliff in
South Africa
and one-third of
Kneecap
questioning the existence of God during a trek to a subzero loo in the Arctic Circle.
The show's enjoyable first season now comes to an end with former Army ranger and lifestyle guru Goggins – think Bear Grylls trying slightly too hard to be Roy Keane – leading All-Ireland winning Galway player
Joe Canning
and Olympic athlete
Thomas Barr
- 'a hurler and a hurdler' – into the Colombian jungle for a spot of terrifying white-water rafting. But surely the biggest challenge is the one facing Goggins, who must go where many celebrity survivalists will have feared to tread by making a duo of top sportspeople appear interesting.
It's a tough ask. While previous participants, such as former taoiseach Varadkar and Kneecap, know how to sell themselves, athletes are cut from a different cloth. They tend to be guarded on camera and generally talk in clichés. At the end of the day and with all credit to the lads, Goggins is going to have to find a way to make them open up. Otherwise, it would be platitudes till tea-time and beyond.
The good news is that Canning and Barr are unusually personable by sports star standards. Dropping their guard from the outset, the pair are chatty and keen to test themselves. 'The fear of the unknown, that's my biggest fear,' says Canning as they drive into the jungle – though he gets a handle on his anxiety long enough to tease Barr. 'This is your terrain, coming from Waterford,' he laughs.
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Uncharted with Ray Goggins: Thomas Barr and Joe Canning
There is candour to go with the jokes. Canning says he is slow to warm to strangers – echoing Leo Varadkar's reticence in week one. 'I'm an introvert. I don't like too big a crowd or being around people I don't know. If I don't trust people and think they're genuine, I won't open up to them,' he says.
Goggins respects his honesty and responds with some home truths of his own, discussing his time spent away from home and the toll it takes on family life. 'I had kids when I was in Afghanistan,' he says, referring to a deployment with a private security company. 'I would be gone eight months of the year. My older son he's 17. I've missed a lot of his life. It's a big price to pay.'
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The jungle is a daunting obstacle course. There is a terrifying trip down white-water rapids while the entire place is heaving with bugs, whose unblinking eyes shine in the dark (this is what experts refer to as nightmare fuel).
As Cork's answer to Bear Grylls, Goggins is full of bite – though the show could do without the unintentional hilarity at the start when he pretends to be a shouty Sergeant Major and tells the celebs to refer to him as 'Ray' (what else would they call him?). There is also far too much swearing: an f-bomb is an f-bomb even in the tropics. But Goggins, Canning and Barr make for an engaging trio as they warm up to one another. Once the ice melts, this tropical thrill ride is a fine full stop to a rewarding series.