Take a man from Bristol, give him (and his pet) a rough and ready roof over their heads in a remote part of Britain, roll the cameras and you have yourself a hugely popular Sunday night TV show. John Hudson explains

B ristol-based explorer Monty Halls' Great Escape is a lovely Sunday night TV series – but it's touching a raw nerve with some reviewers.

Monty admits that he can see what they mean. For six months last summer, filming the programme took him to the beautiful west coast of Scotland, where he and local people renovated a little bothy, and then he lived in it until the end of September.

And, er, that's it, really. He's accompanied by a beautiful great lolloping dog, there are a couple of characterful pigs and a clique of free-range hens, while friendly neighbours and a cosy pub are just a few minutes' walk away.

"I could do that," has been the general reaction. Reviewers like Monty and they've found the first few episodes relaxing viewing – but seething envy and mutterings of "jammy devil" have never been far away.

"I have no problem with that," says Monty, in his exploration company's basement office, off Whiteladies Road. "I know I was hugely fortunate to have this opportunity, and I understand when people say 'that's not work'. I felt that every second I was there.

"Some said I seemed cheerful all the time. That was because I was having the time of my life. I just wanted to enjoy every second of it."

Former Royal Marine Monty is a marine biologist and professional diver, and his previous TV appearances have reflected this. He first caught the eye in 2004, when he won Channel 4's Superhuman, and after that came two series of Great Ocean Adventures for Channel 5 and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, on Channel 4.

There were plenty of hairy moments in all these. "Probably the most dangerous TV job was in the second series of Great Ocean Adventures, when we dived with animals like the big Humboldt squid, that aren't accustomed to people," says Monty.

"That was deep in the Sea of Cortez, off Mexico. There were some very experienced cameramen there, but we were all nervous."

And now the BBC has come in for this latest project, set up in Bristol by Tigress Productions and Icon Films. The original idea was for Monty to live up there for a full year, but in the end, the BBC could run to six months only. There has been some wry comment about this, and even his friends at Applecross, where the series was filmed, said he couldn't call himself a crofter until he had seen a Scottish winter.

Monty agrees. "I'd have loved to have stayed the whole year," he says.

"There's no new TV planned at present, but I'd leap at the chance to go and stay from October to March."

He and his dog Reuben had been together for just 10 days before the show, and one observer sniffed: "It stinks of an idea concocted in the TV production office. 'You'd better get a dog, Monty. It'll stop the viewers resenting you.' Alas, no."

The reality is this: "My much-loved collie, Maya, was run over a month before filming, and my immediate reaction was not to take another dog," says Monty.

"But then I realised what a fantastic place it is for one, so I went to a rescue centre and told them I needed a dog that was very gentle and good natured.

"They all said: 'Reuben's the one'. They'd raised him, and knew he would cope with whatever came his way." What makes him so viewer-friendly is the fact that, apart from being so obviously good, he revels in his new conditions as much as his owner does, and expresses his joy in all kinds of daft ways."

His new neighbours took to Reuben as much as they did to Monty, who's a youthful 42.

He says: "They had heard about the filming, and the moment we walked into the pub, they all came up and said 'hello' to us both.

"The bothy has now been handed back to the Applecross Trust, which is deciding whether to turn it into a croft with a family living in it and working a smallholding, or to make it an interpretation centre – a museum to crofting.

"I had massive help getting the building into shape. Some feedback has been 'he just seems to sit around eating bacon sandwiches', but there was more to it than that.

"It was a ruin, and it would have been impossible for me to do all the work myself in the time.

"We paid local people to help us, and they put other work aside to do so, because of this old tradition of getting a roof over people's heads."

In one episode, Monty was filmed installing a wind generator, and he also collected rainwater, of which he saw a good deal. "I'm ecological, but could be more so," he admits.

"One thing it taught me was how important it is to recycle. Take a plastic water bottle. Up there, you keep it. Recycling means using the same thing over and over again. In crofting, they do it all the time. With pigs, you never throw away any food, except in their direction. Now, at home, we've got a composting thing, and everything goes in that."

Home is in Long Ashton, where he and his partner Antje, a penguin scientist, are currently renovating their property. Reuben likes the walks and runs there, but is less sold on his master's rugby, played for the Old Bristolians' third team when his schedule allows.

Monty is anxious that exactly what he's been doing is not misunderstood. He says: "About 300 metres away was a small Ministry of Defence establishment, and the people there told me that if I ever had a serious drama, they could have a helicopter there in minutes.

"It wasn't one man alone against the wilderness. It wasn't survival. If I was hungry, I didn't eat limpets. I'd go to the pub. On one occasion, I really did swap six eggs for a cappuccino." In his next off-camera expedition, in June, he's leading a group to South Africa, diving around the coast in search of sharks, and then hitting dry land to watch three British Lions rugby matches.

Conger eels were among the stars of his diving exploits in Scotland, but he also revelled in basking sharks, sea eagles, otters, pine martens, minke whales, dolphins, stag and buzzards.

And then there were the midges. "The cottage is right in the middle of sphagnum moss, and they breed in that," says Monty. "Would you believe 15 million midges per hectare? In July, there was a point when it was impossible to walk outside."

That was certainly not a time for taking off his shirt, though female viewers apparently enjoy it when he does. Any marriage proposals? "Not quite," Monty replies. "But I've had some interesting emails."

Monty Halls' Great Escape can be seen on BBC2 at 9pm on Sundays. His book,

Beachcomber Cottage

, is out now priced £11.99.