Martin Strel ( listen (help·info)) (born 1 October 1954) in Mokronog, SFR Yugoslavia, is a legendary Slovenian long-distance swimmer, best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River. During his swims, he sleeps for 5 hours each day. He prepares himself for a long-distance swim over a year and a half. It usually takes 6 to 7 months for Strel to recover physically. His motto is "swimming for peace, friendship and clean waters."

Strel was born in the town of Mokronog, in the Slovenian region of Lower Carniola, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Strel's first two river swims were the Krka river (105 km) in his homeland, in 28 hours in 1992, and the boundary Kolpa river (62 kilometres (39 mi)), in 16 hours in 1993. In 2000, he swam the Danube River (2,860 kilometres (1,780 mi)) and achieved the world long distance swimming record (3,004 kilometres (1,867 mi)) in 58 days. In July 2001, he achieved one more world record — 504.5 kilometres (313.5 mi) of non-stop swimming in Danube within 84 hours and 10 minutes.

Big River Man is a 2009 documentary film directed by John Maringouin. It follows the Slovenian long-distance swimmer Martin Strel as he swims the entire 3,300 mile length of the Amazon River, between February and April 2007.

The film was nominated for the grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and won the Excellence in Cinematography Award (Maringouin also shot the film). It is being distributed by Revolver Entertainment and the Discovery Channel.

The film has been almost universally praised, achieving a score of 96% by Rotten Tomatoes and 100% score by the top critics, as well as a score of 67 from Metacritic indicating generally favorable reviews. Critics praised the humor and story telling of the documentary and many compared it to a Werner Herzog documentary. One negative review came from Anthony Quinn of Independent, who called the on-screen chronicle of the swim "fuzzy and flaky".

2m1 Records recently released the soundtrack score at the beginning of 2011. In the liner notes, 2m1 Records states: "Rich Ragsdale's wonderful musical achievement defines Martin Strel and his comedic yet serious struggle in swimming 3,300 miles down the Amazon. Going from a Pendereckian aesthetic to even post-rock and orchestral minimalism, this score is contagious in its ability to take you on a comedic yet dark subconscious emotional journey of Big River Man's eclectic protagonist." In association with KNR Productions and Producer Andrew P. Alderete, 2m1 released this album through iTunes and Amazon.

Paul James Michael O'Grady MBE (born 14 June 1955) is an English comedian, television presenter, actor, writer and radio DJ. He is best known for presenting the daytime chat television series, The Paul O'Grady Show and, more recently, Paul O'Grady Live, as well as his drag queen comedic alter ego, Lily Savage, as whom he performed in various television series including Blankety Blank (1997–1999) and Lily Live! (2000–2001). He also appeared in the comedy sitcom Eyes Down (2003–2004) and presented several travel documentaries. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 2 with his own Sunday evening show, Paul O'Grady on the Wireless produced by Malcolm Prince.

Born to a working class Irish migrant family in Birkenhead, O'Grady went through various jobs in his youth, including working in various bars, for the civil service and for social services, moving around the country to do so. It was whilst living in London in 1978 that he first turned his hand to drag, developing the character of Lily Savage based upon various female relatives of his.