In all my time as a TV critic, I never thought I would type what I’m about to type. So here goes. In Amazon with Bruce Parry (BBC Two, Monday, 29 September, 9pm) there’s nothing I like more than watching the star of the show vomit. Normally, people spewing gives me puerile giggles or disgusted hoots, however, when Parry does it, he usually gives great pleasure to the tribes he’s staying with, generally getting a pat on the back for being a ‘real man’. That or he’s taken a load of weird drugs. Is their anything he won’t do? How about ‘bullet ants’?

There’s a scene in A Man Called Horse where Richard Harris ends up in a tribe. At the close of the film (I think… I’ve only half-seen it once, when my dad was watching it, taped from the telly when I was about 8 years old. For the record, the tape was housed in one of those pretend book covers for that touch of class) Harris undergoes a ritual, which (again, if I remember correctly) see bones being put through his nipples, which are attached to a bending sapling, leaving him screaming and with rather sore looking tits.

Even though the film (in my mind) is exaggerated and stretched for the sake of cinema, I wonder if Bruce Parry is the modern equivalent? Okay, he’s not gone through anything quite so torturous (yet), but he’s certainly put himself through it for this show. See, last night, no bones were involved, but rather, the ‘ant test’. This test was already “pretty hardcore”, with targets drawn on the arms, wrists, eyes, arm-joints, adam’s apple, stomach… etc… where village elders would sting the crap out of everyone. Bruce gamely joined in.

However, when Bruce mentions the fact that the ant stings are similar to wasp stings, which he’s allergic to… and you begin to see how far Parry will go in his quest to ingratiate himself with every tribe he stays with. He’s a wonderful bloke to have on the box… and I’ve started thinking that this show should be called Amazon with A Man Called Bruce.

The Marubo, responsible for the ant-test, weren’t a bunch of masochists though. Of all the tribes I’ve seen Bruce with, this lot were the warmest and most fun. They tickled everyone, carried Bruce around while the women danced. Such was their thirst for fun, we saw a rare thing – Bruce wanting a sit down for a rest. Of course, it didn’t happen as he ended up dancing all night to primal drums and chants. Although, during this, a teenage girl stuck her MP3 player in his ear and he got a blast of ‘Thriller’. It was a surreal moment.

Everywhere Parry goes, he seems to make friends. Perhaps it’s his boundless enthusiasm, his sheer joy at meeting new people and his complete willingness to muck in. Whatever it is, it works. In fact, it worked so much on the troubled Matis tribe that they named one of their children ‘Bruce’! One of the reasons I like him, other than what I’ve just mentioned, is that he’s got this Englishness, a pursed lipped and slightly embarrassed grin which reminds me of Paul McGann’s performance of Marwood in ‘Withnail and I’. Watch out for it next time.

The real story of the show was the loggers. Now, just about everyone who has ever thought for one minute, about the people of the Amazon, hates the loggers. They’re the bastards who are ruining the indigenous ways and traditions. However, just about everyone who thinks this have never spent a second WITH these people… Bruce, of course, spends time with them to see what they’re really like. It’s hardly surprising that Bruce got along just fine with them and, also predictably, the loggers aren’t the “demons” that we all expect, but rather, good blokes doing a job.

It would be easy to blame the people at ground level, but it’s clear that those above are the ones calling the shots and making the money. However, even these people, as Parry pointed out, are only supplying “us, for our endless need for hardwood”. So who is the real shower of swine here? Provoking and supremely entertaining stuff.