Bruce Parry

Bruce Parry
Born	(1969-03-17) 17 March 1969 Hythe, Hampshire, England
Occupation(s)	Television presenter, Anthropologist

Bruce Parry (born 17 March 1969, in Hythe, Hampshire, England) is a former Royal Marine instructor who is now a TV presenter and adventurer, known particularly for the documentary programme series Tribe (known as Going Tribal in the United States), co-produced by the BBC and the Discovery Channel.

Background

Parry attended Wells Cathedral School as a boarder between 1978 and 1987. After finishing at Wells, Parry was commissioned as a Royal Marines officer at the age of 18. Soon after training, he became their youngest ever physical training and sports officer and his five year career culminated in the prestigious appointment as the officer in charge of all physical aspects of British Commando training. He left the Marines in 1993 and went on to become an expedition leader for Trekforce, before obtaining a job as a location manager for pop music videos. Parry eventually founded his own company, Endeavour Productions.

Television career

Parry first appeared on television in 2002 in an episode of BBC1's Extreme Lives series entitled "Cannibals and Crampons". Bruce planned, filmed, directed and presented the documentary with his friend Mark Anstice. The film was a first hand account of their successful journey to climb the little known mountain of Gunung Mandala in Indonesian New Guinea. Filmed over the millennium period the two explorers had a first contact with some members of the Korowai Tribe. The film was made by Ginger Television (becoming SMG). Next Parry was chosen to lead the Children's BBC CBBC expedition Serious Jungle, taking four boys and four girls aged 11 to 15 to Borneo to work with orangutans.

Also in 2002 Parry appeared as the straight-faced instructor opposite the inept survivalist Nick Frost in three episodes of Danger! 50,000 volts! The following year he made a return to the BBC1's Extreme Lives series making a programme with Debra Veal about a 700 km canoe race down the Yukon River in Canada entitled "Yukon Quest". The same year he returned to CBBC to lead Serious Desert taking a similar group of children, this time to Namibia's Skeleton Coast to work with the endangered Black Rhino. The following year Parry started filming the prime time BBC2 series Tribe in which he lived with various tribal groups exactly as they do in order to better understand their culture.

The first series of Tribe saw Parry living with indigenous peoples in Gabon, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Mongolia and Venezuela. Next Parry was chosen to lead a group of expeditioners across Greenland in the guise of Captain Robert Falcon Scott for a period remake of Scott's fateful last trip to the South Pole. Series two of Tribe was filmed wholly in Ethiopia as a journey between three different tribal groups. Series three of tribe was filmed in Brazil, Polynesia, Siberia, Bhutan, Tanzania and Malaysia. Most recently Parry journeyed for seven and a half months through Peru and Brazil for his latest series entitled "Amazon" where he looked at such issues as cocaine, oil, logging, slavery, dams, soya, cattle ranching and disease epidemics amongst Indigenous Peoples. Awards for the work he has been involved in include BAFTA's, RTS Best Presenter and many Film Festival Awards.

Songs for Survival

Currently, his series, Amazon is being re-shown on British TV. To link in with this series and his last one, Tribe, he has put together a double album of twenty exclusive new songs from KT Tunstall, Johnny Borrell, A-ha, Black-Eyed Peas, Hot Chip and more. The album is called Bruce Parry presents: Amazon/Tribe - Songs for Survival. The first track on the album is used as the opening theme music for Amazon. The album is available now on iTunes and will be released on the 13 October 2008. The record label is Kensaltown Records and all profits will go to Survival International.

Filmography

• Extreme Lives (2002)
• Serious Jungle (2002)
• Extreme Lives (2003)
• Serious Desert (2003)
• Tribe (Three series - 2005, 2006, 2007)
• Blizzard-Race To The Pole (2006)
• Amazon (2008)

Personal life

Spirituality

Parry was raised as a Christian but his experiences among the tribes have led him to believe in a sceptical form of pandeism:

When I came back from expeditions, I had some experiences that made me readdress all that. I'd pretty much known all along that Christianity wasn't for me. Ever since then, I've been on my own quest to find another truth. I can't read novels, but I do read books about cosmology, about astrophysics, about genetics. I'm interested in altered states of mind, and creation myths. It's all part of the same thing - I want to know why we think what we think. Now, I'd describe myself as pan-deist, reluctantly verging on atheist.

Parry has since been described, with his apparent approval, as a "Christian turned sceptical pan-deist turned reluctant atheist" who "sees himself on a spiritual journey."

See also

• Anthropology
• List of anthropologists
• Reality television
• Bear Grylls, British adventurer
• Les Hiddins, Australian survival expert
• Les Stroud, Canadian survival expert
• Ranulph Fiennes, British adventurer
• Ed Stafford, British adventurer
• Ray Mears, English survival expert

External links

• bruceparry.com
• Amazon at BBC Online
• Tribe at BBC Online
• Going Tribal on the Discovery Channel website

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