Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey In The World has been called the greatest adventure story of all time. Cherry-Garrard, a wealthy upper-class landowner, was appointed zoological assistant on Captain Scott’s doomed polar expedition when he was 24 in 1910. He returned two and a half years later a broken man who would suffer intense bouts of depression for the rest of his life.

On his return the committee in charge of Scott’s expedition asked Cherry-Garrard to write the official narrative. He set about interviewing those who had come back but in 1914 Cherry went to serve in Flanders. Invalided home, he met George Bernard Shaw under whose influence he severed his links with the expedition committee and began to write a very different book to the one originally planned. The Worst Journey In The World appeared in 1922, and was immediately hailed as a modern classic.

In this adaptation, the story begins at Cape Evans in the frozen Ross Sea, as Scott chooses the 12 men who will set off on the southern journey. With horses, motor sledges and dogs they will take supplies and lay food depots for the assault on the Pole.

A magical Antarctic icescape is created by a musical score specially composed by Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

The cast stars Matt Green as Cherry; John McAndrew as Scott; Carl Prekopp as Atch; Richard Mitchley as Bill; Mark Meadows as Captain Oates; Peter Callaghan as Birdie; Simon Lee Phillips as Silas; Jack Reynolds as Tom Crean; Andrew Byron as Keohane; and Huw Davies as Edgar Evans.

This drama is adapted by Costa Book of the Year Award-winning writer Stef Penney.