Biggins (19 page)

Dr Bob was my key ally. He’s a lovely man they should show more on the show. He runs through all the pitfalls, the dangers, the spiders. I thought back to the little boy in Salisbury who hated going to the outside toilet because of the spiders. Fortunately
On Safari
had given me a genuine interest in animals – even scary ones. So I thought I could cope.

‘Walk sideways’ is a key instruction for the jungle, for reasons I probably should remember. But Dr Bob and his team certainly don’t pull any punches. Some of the things you’re told before the show do freak you out. They make it very clear that it’s a very real jungle and is more, not less, serious than it looks. If you think you’re walking on to a safe, sanitised film set, the warnings about poisonous snakes soon put you straight. It’s worst-case-scenario stuff and I think it was what caused Malcolm McLaren to opt out at the last moment. Maybe he, like me, thought it was all just a bit of a giggle at first. Dr Bob put us right. But I’m glad I didn’t bottle out.

The madness of television is that you get the talk of doom in the most inappropriate surroundings. After my two days in the Meridian I was moved to the Versace Hotel. Yes, it’s everything that the name implies. And it
wasn’t really me. All those bright colours. Everything ridiculously expensive. I defer to no one in my love of the good life, but I still don’t think Versace style will ever be for me.

Three pairs of pants, two pairs of swimming trunks, and that’s it. That’s all you are allowed to take into the camp. All the other clothes are issued on the way in, along with a regulation bag of shampoo, conditioners, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste. You can take any medication you need – Janice certainly availed herself of that opportunity – but other than that you travel very light. You get up very early too. My entrance, with a Bushtucker Trial, was timed to be shown live in England, so it had to take place around dawn in Australia. First there was a drive of about an hour and a half to the camp in another van with blacked-out windows. Once there, we went through the magic gates to the compound – which have a worrying amount of barbed wire on them – and I was told to wait behind a bush.

It was there that I first heard the dulcet tones of dear Janice. Now, in one of our illegal, sneaky phone calls Neil had mentioned some mad American woman. But beyond that I had no idea who she was – or who anyone else was. Camera rolled, Janice hugged me and my first thought in the jungle was: This woman is fantastic.

Oh dear, oh dear.

M
y new best friend Janice lost a little of her shine straight away. I was on the show to get the job done. My attitude to most tasks is simple: I've done worse. So, if the boys want me to put my hand in a tree full of scorpions and snakes, then in my hand will go. Janice didn't see it quite that way. She chickened out of the first three tasks and handed the next over to me. It was the one with the gunge. Within ten minutes of my freshly ironed arrival on prime-time television, I was covered in fish skins. And I had swallowed a fair few of them too. Apparently, all my family and friends at home were screaming, ‘Close your mouth!' at the television as my big moment arrived. For some reason I was looking up open-mouthed in excitement. Big mistake.

Next came the cockroaches, the ants or whatever they were.

And on it went. I reeked and could feel the creepy-crawlies creeping and crawling all over me as the trial went on. You don't get as much as a paper tissue to clean yourself up for an awful long time. In fact, you don't get paper tissues at all.

But at least I had Janice. Didn't I? Where the hell's she gone? Goggles on, I'm in the bug chamber looking for stars. One second ago Janice was right beside me. Now I turn and she's safely on the outside, directing operations next to Ant and Dec. I'll have to watch her, I thought as the bugs flew down my throat. Once again, Biggins, close your mouth.

With a batch of stars in my hands I gave my first interview as the gunge started to ferment all over me. Then it's about an hour to the main part of the camp. When I got there I found out that even then I couldn't have a shower. The recycling system and the fish scales couldn't mix. So I was led to the pond, where Marc Bannerman proved to be a real gentleman by helping. It was surprisingly cold and seemed ominously stagnant. But at least I had found a friend in Marc.

Meeting the others was all a marvellously exciting blur. I was just so thrilled to have made it through my first task and made it on to the show. Anna Ryder Richardson was the sole face I recognised – we had worked together years earlier and I knew she would be a treasure. She and Cerys Matthews helped me do my washing in the creek – and trust me, there's really no better sign of friendship than that in a wet, steamy jungle.

From the start I found out that life in the jungle was harder work than it looks, though maybe I only felt that as
I was three times as old as some of my campmates. But, still, it was a long way down to collect the wood and it felt a lot longer on the way back up. Dealing with the silence was my next big shock. With no radio, no television, no music, I nearly went mad. No wonder I barely stopped talking.

Cooking would have helped pass the time, if John Burton Race hadn't been so strangely insistent on taking it over. We weren't there for five-star food, after all, and taking turns would have been fun. But John's ego seemed to get in the way of that. He was my least favourite campmate.

The kiddies, Gemma Atkinson and Jason ‘J' Brown, were adorable. They were like my children and since the show I've seen a lot of both of them. One thing they said had horrified me: that neither had ever been to the theatre. So afterwards I took them to my favourite, the Haymarket, in London. We saw
The Country Wife
, with Toby Stephens and my dear friend Patricia Hodge, and I hope they finally saw what all the fuss was about. ‘Oh, they're so close!' Gemma whispered at me as the curtain rose. Just adorable.

In the camp, J and I both loved to find spiders, animals and insects. ‘When you're in there, look for things. Make the most of the experience,' Dr Bob had told me back on the outside. It was great advice. When would I be in that kind of situation again? When would I ever have the opportunity or the time to see things like baby crayfish in a creek? It's to J's credit that he felt the same.

Seeing the poisonous spider under Janice's bed was a high point on several levels. I loved the fact that, of all the beds, this little predator had found that one. Same with the snake. We got the warning over the PA system (it was like
being in Butlins or a remake of
Hi-de-Hi!
): ‘Celebrities, be aware, there is a snake in the camp.' Well, we all knew that, didn't we, Janice? Seriously, we were all looking for something small. But it was a seven-foot carpet snake. And once more it was on Janice's bed. Funny that.

Cerys was as adorable as the kids. When it was down to the last five and they brought a guitar in we had our own personal Cerys Matthews concert around the campfire – a beautiful moment. She's far more talented than I might have thought. And I know now that she's got lovely parents and a wonderful family. She deserves another shot at happiness with someone great. Call me blind, but I hadn't spotted that Marc was a candidate for the role of romantic lead in Cerys's life. I'd liked him from the start when he had shown me the ropes and helped me get (relatively) gunge-free. As the classic good-looking young male in the camp, he was, in my view, a potential winner – especially as I think the public tends to reward a nice guy. But I'd missed the fact that in most people's eyes he was a love rat. It was a big shock that he was the first to be evicted.

What I liked about Rodney Marsh is that he himself didn't know how nice he was – or could be. Yes, he said some horrible, cutting things. And at first I didn't think that following them up with a joke or a high five could excuse them. At first I thought he was so awful it took my breath away. ‘I don't have a heart,' he said at one point. But when I was told to read out the letter from his daughter (everyone had a letter from a loved one except me – mine, from Neil, was held back because I had failed a trial), he proved that he did. Funnily enough, Neil ended
up getting on particularly well with Rodney's daughter when we all had dinner after the series. Rodney is a good dad and a good man. He shouldn't be afraid of letting his heart show a little more.

But the way he treated Lynne Franks in the camp? He should be (and indeed is) ashamed of that. ‘Sorry, Christopher. You were right and I was wrong. I've tried to apologise to Lynne,' he told me when I was King of the Jungle.

I liked Lynne. Yes, she's tricky and can be difficult. But it still appalled me that when she was evicted Janice and Rodney headed down to the creek and didn't even say goodbye. Call me old-fashioned but that's just plain wrong.

Katie Hopkins, drafted in to replace Malcolm McLaren, was another surprise. Everyone was whispering that she was a total bitch. But I liked her. She had me in stitches with her stories. She's got two kids, and there's something childlike in her attitude to the world. Somehow I think she turns the bitchiness and the nastiness on and off like a tap to get publicity. I missed her when she was gone. Which brings me neatly back to Janice.

After the show Cunard very kindly asked me to speak on a three-week, round-the-world cruise on the
QE2
. As we moved regally from port to port I had plenty of time to think back on
I'm A Celebrity
. I also had time to watch all the tapes. So I finally saw what the viewers had seen. Janice was hysterical. She was entertainment, pure and simple.

At the time it wasn't always so funny, however. ‘She's a professional reality-television star,' was how J described
her to me. And so she is. She was in our show to win it. She came over as devious, dishonest, a monster. The uppers and downers she said she needed made every emotion even more pronounced. The crocodile tears and faux despair at everyone else's evictions were award-winning stuff. Many was the time when J and I could have killed her. But sometimes I did feel differently. We had a few very quiet chats about real life. She talked about her childhood, her dad, her bad times and her early days in the modelling industry when all anyone seemed to want from her was sex. That was the Janice I would like to have known. But throw in a third person – or a muffled cough from a concealed cameraman that reminded her of the cameras' existence – and the other Janice shot back.

I'll not forget the madness of her exit – the vitally important helicopter dash back to LA. Funny, but I'm sure that trip wouldn't have been so essential if she had been Queen of the Jungle in my place. But divas are as divas do.

‘All I want is to be fourth.' That was all that ever went through my head. And as the days passed and my beard got longer and my stomach tighter I began to think I might make it. Knowing people are voting for you is quite wonderful. It makes me a little tearful to think of it, even now. But, oh, we worked for those places in the final few days. The best fun was the cyclone of a water game – it was like being hosed down at Shrublands Health Farm all those years ago. And there were just as many surprises. At one point I remember sitting on the stairs to catch my breath. I looked up and thought we had a new campmate. I swear it was Gollum. It was Janice.

As we went from the final six, to five, to four, I was beside myself with excitement. I would do anything to get further. Just as well.

I'll never forget the bacon sandwich on my food challenge. Or that glass of champagne with the strawberry. Or the chocolate cake, for that matter. But I wasn't ever going to give in. To be honest, it's all a bit of a blur. But I think the tapes prove that I ate the witchetty grubs, the crocodile foot, the three cockroaches and then the kangaroo penis, washed down with some poor sod's testicles. Chewy, if you want to know about the penis. Chewy and moist, if you're interested in the testicles. How I love it when people nod wisely when I say this and say that's what they thought. What you thought? What were you doing thinking about things like that in the first place?

Janice hugged me tightly when I won the show. A tad too tightly? It's just possible. But then the madness really began. The bridge, the best bits, the knowledge that it's over and you can finally get the mud from under your nails – it all floods into your mind at once. Running over the rope bridge, seeing Neil, knowing I had won. After all those days with less than a dozen people, you are thrown into a massive set of meetings and interviews. Then you scrub up and go to a party with 600 guests. No wonder I kept crying. I was in shock for days and days.

Neil and I flew home the day after the party. I just wanted to see friends and family. I wanted to know it was all real. But the air of unreality has hardly left.

Back in London I wanted life to carry on just as it had
before. So I went to the Ivy with Joan Collins. I got a standing ovation when I walked in – and was barely able to eat because so many people kept coming over to speak to me. I can't pretend I didn't love it.

‘Did you know Daniel Craig voted for you?' the marvellous Lisa Tarbuck told me when I saw her that December.
Coronation Street
's magnificent Helen Worth, a dear pal, said she had barely stopped voting. And strangers in the street came up to congratulate me each and every day. ‘How did you do it?' people kept on asking. I have no idea. My only tactic was to be myself. I've been with Dame Judi at the RSC but I'm not that good an actor to play a part 24/7 for three weeks. All I could offer up was who I am. It is humbling and wonderful to think that so many people liked me enough to vote. Thank you.

And what else did I get out of the show? Boxing Day. My first at home in nearly 40 years. I'm back in panto again in
Cinderella
in Southampton for the 2008–9 Christmas and New Year season. But opting out, just that once for
I'm A Celebrity
, turned out to be the best career decision in many a year.

I think I may well have a pension at last. And I'm certainly being paid to have a lot of fun. I did chat show after chat show after
Celebrity
. But some were much more fun than others. I loved being on
Never Mind the Buzzcocks
with the dear Simon Amstell. ‘You mustn't do it. They'll annihilate you. Don't you know what those kinds of shows are like?' my friends warned beforehand. But I knew what Simon was like. We had met years earlier when he was the up-and-coming host of Channel 4's
Popworld
. I did the voiceovers for the Top Five chart each week.

Simon told me I was a cult hit – and I so hope he wasn't just being kind. Anyway, despite the fact that the
Never Mind the Buzzcocks
regulars might as well have been talking Greek when they got on to all the latest people and bands, I managed to keep my head above water. Simon was a darling, just the way I knew he would be. But the show: it took us three and a half hours to get enough footage for a half-hour programme.

‘I can't go on any more. I'm exhausted!' I screeched on camera as a fifth hour of filming approached.

Going on
Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
wasn't quite as much fun, though that wasn't because of its host. The problem, shock horror, was my fellow guest – Janice Dickinson. Janice came over as a bad loser. She was quite cutting in the green room – which, of course, is all part of the set on
Friday Night
. Stephen Merchant and Freddie Flintoff were as surprised as I was. And none of us could quite believe how someone who talked to me in the way that she did could have such a charming boyfriend. He was quite lovely.

Anyway, as the show went on Jonathan came to my aid. ‘You can't say that. Biggins is a national treasure,' he said after one of her worst comments – most of which I think were cut before the broadcast.

‘Darling, it's all done for the cameras,' she whispered at the end as we did some awful dance.

Perhaps. I just know she is very unlikely to be on my Christmas-card list any time soon.

I think I would have missed it if I hadn't done a panto at all that season. So putting one on for
The Paul O'Grady
Show
in December with so many of my best friends was a marvellous bonus. And that wasn't the only time I saw Cilla and Joan in that particular week. When I talk of the great divas in my life how can I forget Shirley Bassey? We had all been at her 70th – imagine! – at Cliveden House that week, camping it up with the best of them.