TEENAGER Corey Overend had to confront spiders and scorpions for his TV debut, while filming a series of episodes for CITV adventure game show Fort Boyard: Ultimate Challenge.

The 17-year-old, from Trowbridge, who studies BTECH Level 3 Sport at Wiltshire College in Chippenham, applied to be part of the show earlier this year and found out he was one of 24 teenagers selected in March.

He then went to film the series, in which six teams of four take on several challenges in a battle to the finish to become “Conquerors of The Fort”, at Fort Boyard in France in June over five days.

Five episodes of the fifth series have already aired and Corey, who was part of the Tigers team, said he has found it surreal watching himself take on the challenges on television with his family.

Corey said: “It started when I saw an email about the show and I thought it looked really good, so I applied and managed to get an audition. There were 456 applicants, but I eventually made it into the final 24 selected for the show.

“The whole experience was amazing. Not just taking part in the different challenges, but when we were back at the fort having our debrief we had our makeup done and it felt like being on a film set.

“There were a range of challenges, some were amazing and some were not so good, but I had one called the Ocean Climb which was a lot of fun and the Tug of Four, which was basically a duel between two teams.

“Another one I had to do included spiders and scorpions. The spiders were okay, it was more the scorpions that worried me, but thankfully the adrenaline got me through it.”

The challenges are based on toughness, fear and speed and during each series, the teams play three times each. The two teams with the most gold coins then return for the final round of the tournament at the finale.

He added: “It’s been quite enjoyable watching myself on TV. I thought it would be cringey, but it’s really well done and all my friends have said it looked really fun.

“I have been watching it with my family, but all the teams are planning on meeting up at some point to watch all the episodes.”

The next episode of Fort Boyard is on Wednesday at 5pm on CITV.