SHACKLETON (concept/scenario/actor)
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Three shipwrecked British explorers stumble through snowdrifts half-alive, with matted beards, rotting clothes and faces caked with grime. They finally reach the edge of a Norwegian-run whaling station on the remote island of South Georgia on May 20, 1916.
Two young boys run away at the sight of them.
It is miracle enough that the men are alive. But equally surprising is that, after wandering for nearly 18 months near the Antarctic Circle, battling hunger, disease and, above all, crippling cold, Sir Ernest Shackleton, the group's Irish-born leader, could still display the perfect manners of an Edwardian gentleman arriving a bit late for tea.
When he finally reaches the astonished Norwegian whalers, Shackleton apologises. "I'm afraid we smell," he says.