Don't Look Down - Interview with Paddy McGuinness

10 October 2023

Why did you sign up for Don’t Look Down?
I’ve done stuff for Stand Up to Cancer in the past, and Channel 4 got in touch about doing this show, and for me, well, everyone, whether we like it or not, knows someone that has been affected by cancer, or been affected personally. Then when you’re hosting something, you’re normally like, “Off you go,” but when they said about getting involved a little bit, I thought, that’s quite interesting, I’ve never seen that done before. I’ve never seen Ant and Dec in the jungle eating a kangaroo’s penis – they’re always like, “Go on, get it down you!”

But I’ve got to say, I was on top of Austria’s highest suspension bridge the other day, throwing myself off it, and I thought, I should have thought this one through to be honest [laughs]. It’s been great. It’s a good group, and I think we got lucky with that. Everyone’s supportive of each other. If someone’s having a bad day, or really scared, everyone gets around them and makes them feel a little better. So far, so good.

Did you feel any pressure as the team leader to nail all the training?
When we were on the suspension bridge, they [producers] said to me, “If anyone bottles it, you’ll have to do it again,” because you’ve got to do it in couples. So, I went off first with Bev Callard, Liz McDonald from Coronation Street, and I said to her, “This isn’t going to happen again, is it?!” Me and Bev went off, and then everyone else – some people really struggled, there were a lot of tears and what have you.

And how are you with heights?
I’m kind of alright, but no one wants to do that!

Did you know it was going to be this intense before you joined the show?
I knew more than the guys who are doing it because I’m hosting it, so I know what’s coming up. But nothing prepares you for that. You look at it on paper and go, “Right, you’re going to say this, this and this, and then you’re going to demonstrate it.” That bridge, the worst part about that is getting yourself ready, because you’ve got to climb over the edge of the bridge yourself, and you stand on a piece of steel… so you’re stood on it, with your back to the drop, and then you have a clip on the front there, and you’ve got to lean back and let that hold you, and then you pull this pin and you just drop backwards. It’s not nice. So, even though I knew what was happening, until you see it in the flesh and you’re doing it, you’re like, “Oh, Jesus!” It’s terrifying.

What’s been the toughest part of training? Have there been any scares?
Any challenge you do at that kind of height, if anyone says they’re not scared, they’re lying. A lot of the stuff, you know, you’re rigged into things, and it’s all alien to you, you’ve never done it before, so you’ve always got that fear. It’s about managing it and getting on with it. I think the more you wait to do something, it just gets worse and worse and worse. So yeah, everyone’s got that fear in them, but it’s about how you deal with it when the chips are down.

Of the celebrities taking part, who has surprised you the most?
Victoria [Pendleton], Olympian, I wasn’t surprised about her focus and all the rest of it. Anton [Ferdinand] surprised me because, coming from that football world and the banter and all this carry-on, but he’s let his guard down. He’s got a real vulnerability about him. He just talks about whatever’s on his mind, so, he’s surprised me in that sense.

Fats [Timbo] – on day two, or it might have been day one, she was saying, “I can’t, that’s me, I’m off, I’m done” kind of thing, and I had a word with her, and then all the group come round and chatted to her and seeing how she’s done since that day is amazing. I was talking to her about it, “God, can you believe you were actually considering you couldn’t do it, you couldn’t carry on?” Those two [Anton and Fats] stand out to me, just for how they’ve been and how they’ve dealt with things.

But everyone, honestly – when you see them doing it, especially when you see them on the wire, you’re like, “Ooh, there’s Charley Boorman on a high wire, just casual.” It’s random [laughs].

Are you confident you’ll all be able to complete the final challenge or do you think it really will come down to (ahem) the wire?
As well as the height, the distance is a real factor in it. These balancing poles – you’ve seen them do it on the telly, I don’t know why, I just presumed these poles were like bloody fibreglass, but they’re essentially like a scaffolding tube, and when you’re holding them… it’s like holding a set of dumbbells, but for five minutes, while you’re 100 metres up in the air. That distance, to keep going, your arms start to ache and everything else. If there’s going to be any problems at all, strangely, I’m not worried about someone slipping off it, it’s more if they can physically get there.

I’m not worried about anyone not being able to balance, they’re all OK at that now. And again, on the night, when you’re at this landmark and people are there, and lights and cameras, your mind starts to wander. It’s alright out here in the Austrian Alps, beautiful, with no-one around, but when you’re in London and all eyes are on you, that’s different. We’ll just have to see.

Do you have a plan for if someone panics and is like, “I can’t do it!”?
Yeah, someone else is just going to have to walk a bit further, that’s the plan [laughs]. If someone says, “That’s it,” or they’re injured, it’s like, “Right, we’ll all walk a bit further then,” because you’ve got to do the distance. There’s no two ways around that. Whatever the distance is, we’ve got to do it. I just hope, you know, there’s more than just one or two of us doing it, because that’ll be a nightmare.

Would you be keen to do another challenge-based show where you get stuck into the training?
If you’d have asked me when I was stood on the bridge, I would have been like, “I’m not sure.” But to be honest, I’ve really enjoyed it. The only tricky thing – listen, when I say tricky, I’m not tarmacking roads – is just when you’re involved in the script side of things and writing and remembering stuff, there’s no autocue or anything like that, and then doing challenges as well, some days, my head’s a bit like, “What are we doing next?!”, whereas everyone else is just doing the challenge. That takes a bit of getting used to. I’ve never done the two together. So, who knows? I wouldn’t say, “No, I’m never doing it again,” but it’d have to be the right thing.

What preparation did you do, in terms of your fitness and diet, ahead of taking part in the show?
Nothing. This is the thing with highwire walking, it’s not like – for instance, you do Soccer Aid, you can go on a pitch with a football, do a bit of running and sprinting – but highwire walking, you’re not on the washing line in the garden, are you? [Laughs]. You just cannot practice it, you don’t know how to do it, and when Jade [Kindar-Martin, lead trainer] gave us our first group lesson, I remember thinking, no one’s going to be able to do this. I genuinely thought, though I never said it to the group, but in my head, I thought, we are screwed here, because it’s so difficult, and the amount of time we’ve got to learn it in is unheard of. Jade, who’s the world authority on it, told us that he normally does about three weeks of training just standing on a platform with the pole. We’ve had a real thrown-in-at-the-deep-end experience but somehow – I don’t know how – it’s clicked with us all.

Shows like these are a wonderful learning experience, not just physically, but emotionally. Have you learnt anything, personally? Or seen any personal growth among the celebrities?
The one thing about highwire walking, which I didn’t have any clue about, is that they’re all quite centred, focused, calm people who do it. One of the things Jade was saying constantly is about this staying calm, especially if you’re halfway out on the wire and you start having a little panic attack, you’re there, you’ve got to keep going. Listen, I’m not sat in an ice bath meditating at night, but you take stuff like that on board, you breathe a little differently in certain situations. It does stay with you.

Don’t Look Down is in aid of Stand Up to Cancer. In what ways has your life been impacted by cancer?
My dad passed away from colon cancer and my brother had leukaemia. My thing with Stand Up to Cancer, especially with the raising money, is I hope – touch wood – that within all our lifetimes, they’ll have cracked the cure. I’m all about the research and the more money that can be pumped into that, the better. My brother had leukaemia and he’s still with us, but with him, and this is kind of a good thing, I don’t even think about it anymore, you know, how he lives his life. From visiting him in The Christie [a cancer treatment centre in Manchester], seeing him really, really ill, to now, it’s – I’m glad I don’t think about it with him, you know what I mean? So yeah, my brother and my dad, but like I just said, I hope, please God, that we are all here – imagine waking up in the morning and just seeing that headline: They’ve Finally Found a Cure to Cancer.  It’ll be mind-blowing. It’ll be amazing. I hope we get there. The more people chuck a little bit of money in, the better.

Does it change the feel of the show, that association with Stand Up to Cancer?
It does. I think it brings a little bit of pressure. Everyone’s there because they’ve either had cancer themselves, or their relatives have had cancer. We did a challenge where it’s a 350-metre cliff face, and when you’re on the top of it, you look over that, it’s like you’re on an aeroplane, “Whoa, we’re in the clouds here,” and the challenge was, they lowered you off that and you had a heart rate monitor on, and the only way of getting back up was to lower your heart rate yourself by breathing.

Anton said, “The only way I’m going to do this is just saying, it’s for my mum, and thinking about my mum,” and that’s how he did it. When you see someone talking like that, it brings home why everyone’s there. That’s where you get that added bit of pressure where you think, I can’t not not do this. But everyone’s coping alright. We’ve had a few tears – that’s just me [laughs]. Other than that, it’s all good.

You’re never off our screens. How do you juggle all your different work commitments?
It’s just how they’re scheduled because they’re not like that when I’m filming – it never feels like I’m doing Top Gear, then I’m straight on to whatever else. There’s always gaps in between, but it seems that, when they go on the telly, especially if you’re on different channels, they just seem to be programmed that way. So, it does feel like sometimes, God, he never stops working, but also, I do think being working class, it’s in you. You just have that thing of, that constant fear of, if it stops, what do I do next? You constantly have that in your mind. I’ve always been quite driven in that sense, I’ve always been looking at the next thing, even when I’m on a show that’s really successful. I’m always looking at the next thing or trying to create something myself and what have you. That’s maybe why I’ve been doing it over 20 years. Touch wood, it’s been alright. I mean, they’re trying to kill me off on this show, but I’m alright at the minute, I’m surviving it [laughs].