They are celebrities, so how were Ant and Dec going to get out of this? Shamed by their producer credits on Saturday Night Takeaway, a show it turned out, that specialised in defrauding its callers, here they were back demanding more calls to a premium number. So first in tiny print, then in larger letters, and finally in their own words, they explained: “Votes cast after the lines close will not be counted but may still be charged.” Now only the truly stupid will lose out.
The other loser in last night’s debut of the seventh season of I’m A Celebrity, the reality show in which the allegedly famous survive the humiliations of the Australian bush, was Janice Dickinson, sometimes known as the 100-year-old supermodel. Lippy in the senses that she is bursting both with collagen and attitude, she soon clashed with the New Age’s own Lynne Franks, who considered herself her team’s Alpha Female (with a modicum of novelty, the participants have been divided into two camps).
“The lilies are your friends, believe me,” said Dickinson as they canoed to base camp. “I was born in a swamp.” “Now why,” muttered Franks, “does that not surprise me?” Nominating herself for the first “bushtucker trial”, Davidson declared herself 100 per cent ready to win. She lost, having “forgotten” she was phobic about eels. Eels are to this programme what Simon Cowell is to The X-Factor: an unavoidable hazard. It was pretty Omega Female to bow out at their mere mention. Franks and her team-mates, a busty model and a boybander, were terribly nice about it but they went to their sleeping bags empty stomached.
On the other team a jolly actor from EastEnders, a chef, a singer and Anna Ryder Richardson off Changing Rooms were being managed by Rodney Marsh. The songstress wiped away a tear after being pushed out of helicopter attached to a 1,000ft bungee. Anna wiped away many more before she even jumped. Marsh, who was let off because of poor weather, has been nominated by us suckers for the next trial. As has, naturally, Davidson.
It is an artful-made show but it suffers particularly this time from the flaw that none of its participants is a celebrity. The one who was, Malcolm McLaren, pulled out. “I don’t have the time, patience, inclination, passion, will, interest or excitement,” he told a producer who went to apply moral blackmail. We know how he feels.
TimesonLine
