Solene Leroux
modified to
11:54 a.m., February 09, 2022
Nearly 90,000 applications. This year again, Beijing Express tempted many followers. guest of Culture Media Wednesday, the presenter Stéphane Rotenberg, spoke about these new candidates. For this fifteenth season, there are 16 candidates divided into eight pairs. Some have a rather atypical profile, like Étienne, a doctor from Cannes, who didn’t know the show at all.
Often, confides the presenter, “they are fans” who wish to participate in the show. For Etienne, it’s just the opposite. “He watched Beijing Express for the first time during confinement last year, and he loved it”, laughs Stéphane Rotenberg.
“But, it’s completely stupid!”
A doctor in his fifties, not very athletic, who “caught the eye of the casting director” of the show. His personality gave some destabilizing moments during filming, says Stéphane Rotenberg: “Every time I threw a rule, he said ‘I don’t understand anything’, so I explained again and, when I finished, he said ‘But, it’s is completely stupid!'” According to the flagship presenter of M6, people will either love it or be very annoyed.
Another point mentioned by Stéphane Rotenberg, the shooting conditions. Especially after a last season marked by the pandemic and a fatal accident. “It’s been a very complicated season,” he conceded at Philippe Vandel’s microphone. “Central Asia has been very little affected, because in general they are very sparsely populated countries, with large spaces,” explains the presenter. “And we tested, multi-tested,” he says.
The only time we will see the candidates with masks is during their visit to the United Arab Emirates, because Dubai applied stricter health rules. But overall, Stéphane Rotenberg confirms that “it was much less complicated” than in the previous season. The new season of Beijing Express is launched Thursday evening on M6.