Wish You Were Here? ; Ben Anderson Risks His Life to Meet the People Who Live in the World's Most Volatile Hotspots. Decca Aitkenhead Talks to the Man Who has Reinvented the Travel Show

Summary

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When Ben Anderson went souvenir shopping in Liberia, he wasn't looking for the trinkets that a BBC travel show presenter normally buys.

Instead of browsing local markets in the manner of Judith Chalmers, Anderson ended up in a teenager's bedroom, buying an AK- 47 for $35 (Pounds 20). In Benin, he found himself involved in a sacrificial voodoo ceremony, while in Sierra Leone his companions were child soldiers so drunk they could barely stand up. The young men he met in Nigeria described themselves as professional 'political hooligans', and total strangers in the Ivory Coast aimed imaginary guns at the presenter's head, and mimed slitting his throat.

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Wish You Were Here? ; Ben Anderson Risks His Life to Meet the People Who Live in the World's Most Volatile Hotspots. Decca Aitkenhead Talks to the Man Who has Reinvented the Travel Show

As far as Anderson was concerned, the whole trip was an enormous success.

Called The Violent Coast, his travel programmes from west Africa will be shown on BBC4 this week. They follow on from his surprise success of last year, a series called Holidays in the Axis of Evil, in which Anderson visited the six countries branded the 'axis of evil' by President Bush. Pretending to be tourists, he and a BBC producer entered North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq, to find out what these nations were like.

Despite heavy chaperoning fr...

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