Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story (18 page)

I rang my sister and asked her how to cook beans on toast. She told me exactly the same thing Ant had. Much to Ant’s annoyance, I decided to believe her, and it’s been my signature dish ever since. I know what you’re thinking, lady readers: I’m a real catch, aren’t I?

Of course, while we were living in the flat, one constant remained – we were out and about promoting our records, and the record company had a whole new way to push our music on to an unsuspecting public: competitions. There’d be ‘Win a signed CD’, ‘Win a telephone call’ or, by far the worst, ‘Win lunch with PJ and Duncan’. They would be run by magazines like
Just 17
or
Smash Hits
, and would always strike fear and dread into our hearts. It’s true what they say: there really is no such thing as a free lunch. They were some of the most painful meals of my life, and I’ve had breakfast with Terry from East 17.

The lunches were always in London, at Planet Hollywood or the Hard Rock Café, basically anywhere that served burgers, chips and fizzy drinks – me and Dec insisted on it. The winning fan would turn up, usually very nervous, with a friend there for moral support, and it would be up to us to make conversation. It was like a two-course version of the girls in my mam’s kitchen. We’d have to make all the running, so we’d open with the very original question, ‘How are you?’, followed by the classic ‘Which school do you go to?’ The waiter would come over to take our order and we’d always say, ‘No starters, let’s skip straight to the mains, shall we?’ We were determined to get in and out as quickly as possible.

There was one exception though, a lunch we had with two fans who weren’t nervous at all, mainly because they didn’t give a toss about PJ and Duncan. This girl had been bought lunch with us by her dad at a charity auction. She turned up at Planet Hollywood with her friend and, pretty much immediately, we could tell she really wasn’t bothered. They looked even more bored than we did. I was tempted to say, ‘Look, you’re both clearly not arsed and we’d rather be somewhere else, shall we just call it a day?’, but we stuck it out to the bitter end, all the way through the ice-cream sundaes.

Away from the embarrassment of lunch with fans, we found sanctuary in our flat in Fulham. We kept ourselves to ourselves and didn’t really know any of our neighbours, apart from an Australian bloke who lived upstairs. His name? Peter Andre. These days he may be better known as Jordan’s one-time other half but, back then, he was a fellow pop star and, apart from the deafeningly loud R’n’B he used to play, Peter was the perfect neighbour. We’d often bump into him in the foyer of an evening – he’d be off to the gym for a swim and a workout and we’d be on our way to the Prince of Wales for eight pints and a bucketload of free meat. Looking back, that was another warning sign we weren’t cut out for pop stardom. Peter was working out to keep his six-pack stomach in shape, while all we could think about was Chinese Pete’s six-pack of chicken wings. The fact that the record company put us in a flat with a gym was a hint that we never really took.

While we were in Fulham, I bought my second car. You won’t be surprised to hear that the MG Metro Turbo never made it down to the big smoke. My second car was a Suzuki Vitara jeep. It had the flared arches, wide wheels, lowered suspension and beefy twin exhaust – but there was just one problem: I was too scared to drive it in London, which meant I hardly ever took it out.

It was the most useless purchase Dec has ever made. One evening, I’d planned a romantic evening with Lisa. She had just got back from touring with Deuce and we hadn’t seen each other in ages. I’d booked dinner at one of our regular haunts, Mr Wings Chinese restaurant. It was going to be a special night for the two of us. She came round to the flat, we had a nice glass of champagne and, when we were both ready, I rang a taxi. Dec overheard me and insisted I cancel it; he’d take us in the jeep.

It was less than a mile away – I might have been scared of driving in London, but I was sure that even I could manage such a short trip.

So I phoned the taxi firm to cancel. The controller said the car was just round the corner. I told him I didn’t need it because I was getting a lift from a friend instead, and the bloke at the taxi firm flipped. ‘You can’t do that, he shouted. ‘You can’t just order a taxi and then cancel it ’cos you’ve sorted out a lift. It’s already on the way.’ I didn’t much like his tone, and I didn’t appreciate him telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I said I
could
cancel it and I
was
cancelling it, and we parted on bad terms.

Dec had already gone downstairs to pull the jeep round to the front door. Lisa and I got our things together and headed down for our lift. We got to the ground floor, and there was Dec, keys in his hand and no sign of the jeep. ‘Bad news,’ he muttered. The battery was flat. The car hadn’t been
used or even started for so long the battery had drained and it was useless. There was no other option: I had to ring a taxi. I called the taxi firm back and tried to order another one, but the bloke on the phone was still so furious that he refused. Me and Lisa had to walk a mile to our special dinner.

It was probably for the best. I was secretly still really scared of driving in London.

I did however manage to get my own back. A few weeks later, me and Dec went out for a curry on the King’s Road after a night down the pub, and the food was amazing. As usual, by the end of the night we were a little bit the worse for wear. We paid the bill and, before we left, Dec nipped to the toilet, and while he was away, I filled his coat pockets with cutlery – just enough so that it would fall out when he put his jacket on as we left the restaurant. I then sat back, feeling that kind of smugness you only get when you play a trick on one of your mates and you can barely stop yourself from sniggering

I came back from the toilet, and we were just about to leave when the owner came over. We thanked him for a lovely meal, and he brought us over another drink. The three of us chatted for a while and then eventually we got up and left.

The cutlery didn’t fall out of his jacket. I was gutted.

I didn’t even notice the extra weight in my coat. We were in a taxi on the way back and, as I searched my pocket for my wallet, I found the cutlery. It took me a couple of seconds to click what he had done, and we burst out laughing. I turned to Ant and said, ‘Very funny.’

It
was
very funny – very, very funny – and I didn’t know it then, but this was a gag that was going to keep on giving.

We got home, and I unloaded the cutlery out of my coat pockets. We were actually both quite chuffed that we had clean knives and forks in the flat for the first time since we’d moved in.

The following weekend, Clare came round to stay and said she fancied a curry. I remembered the amazing food and hospitality we’d been shown on our night at the Indian restaurant and said to her, ‘I’ve got the perfect place, me and Ant went last week, you’ll love it.’ We headed down to the King’s Road in Chelsea. When we arrived at the restaurant, it was crammed full of people but, immediately, the owner recognized me.

‘It’s you!’

‘Yes, it’s me,’ I replied. ‘I’m back!’

‘Get out or I’m calling the police.’

He glared at me angrily. He was dead serious.

‘Get out or I am calling the police.’

He reached for the phone next to the till. The whole restaurant went silent and turned to look at us. Clare looked at me, as the excited smile I was wearing on the way in slowly disappeared from my now puzzled, not to mention embarrassed, face. Then the penny dropped…

‘Oh! The cutlery! Don’t worry, I’ll bring it back.’

‘Get out! Get out! Or I’m calling the police.’

We turned and left sharpish as he started to dial 999. Naturally, Clare asked what the hell all that was about. I tried to explain what had happened, but Ant’s mock cutlery-theft didn’t sound so funny after the shame of being chucked out, not to mention nearly arrested, in front of the whole restaurant. We cancelled our curry plan and headed back to the flat. Ant and Lisa were in front of the telly watching
Stars in Their Eyes.

‘That was quick – nice curry?’ I said to Clare. She gave me the dirtiest of dirty looks and said ‘Don’t
you
dare talk to me about curry.’

We might not have had much of a fan base at the Indian restaurant but, as pop stars, we were capable of attracting the occasional – how shall I put it? – obsessive stalker. I was once sent a notebook by a female fan who, I hasten to add, was older than most of the people who normally bought our
records and, let me tell you, this was no ordinary book. The outside was covered in pictures from the Kama Sutra and, inside, was a story she’d written. The plot seemed to involve kidnapping me and using me as her sex slave. At least I think that’s what was going on – I certainly wasn’t going to read the whole thing.

I read most of that book, and it was hilarious. When it came to sex slavery, this girl had a very vivid imagination.

From what I could gather, her plan was to feed me just enough food so that I’d be capable of performing sexually but not so much that I’d have enough energy to escape.

I’m no dietician, but getting that nutritional balance right would be a very fine line – surely escaping requires fewer calories than being a sex slave?

I suppose that depends what your sex-slave duties involved. You’re right, though, wouldn’t it be much easier to jump out of a window than have a bit of how’s your father? We should have finished the book; I’m sure she had it all worked out.

The second half of 1995 saw our new album perform less well than
Psyche,
even though it still shifted over 100,000 copies and reached number eleven. We started 1996 by turning our attention back to what we did best, or what we did least badly anyway: television. We had our BAFTA from the first series of
The Ant and Dec Show,
which had secured good ratings, so, displaying the same showbiz nous we always did, we decided not to do a second series because of our reservations about the quality of the first one. Then someone pointed out that if we didn’t do another one, the show would look like a failure, so we agreed to do a follow-up series.

This time, though, like the mini multimedia moguls we were, we also made a few demands. We wanted a new time slot – 5.10 instead of 4.35, because we thought the extra thirty-five minutes would make us more grown-up. We wanted a new producer, and new writers. Remarkably, the BBC agreed, and without even once suggesting we find new presenters. Once they’d given the go-ahead for that lot, we demanded a jacuzzi full of champagne and a Rolls-Royce to the studio every day, but they told us to quit while we were ahead.

Finding a new producer was tough. We needed someone experienced and funny. Eventually, the job went to a man called Conor McAnally, a tall, well-built Irishman who always wore a cap and had made a lot of kids’ shows in Ireland. Conor was a bit of a maverick and, once we got to know him, we realized he liked to take risks, although we should have known that from the start: wearing a cap in my company was always a big risk after what I’d done to Ant in Torremolinos. Working with him was a breath of fresh air. In our first meeting, he told us he thought the first series had been a bit of a mess and suggested that, for series two, we pretend that Ant and I share a flat – although he stopped short of letting us bring
The X-Files
box set and a crate of Stella Artois to the studio, which was disappointing.

Anne Gilchrist, the director we’d enjoyed working with so much on the first series, also brought two new writers on board. The first one was a fellow North-easterner called Dean Wilkinson. Dean was from Stockton-on-Tees, and he was very different to the writers we’d had on the first series: he was funny, for a start, and his style was a little more surreal, which we loved. This was the start of a working relationship with Dean that would last for the next seven years. I don’t know if he smashed a mirror sometime in 1995 to get that kind of bad luck, but he was stuck with us for a long time.

Dean was the first person who wrote what could be called proper double-act material for us. We’d had reservations about it in the first series, but there was no point in denying it any longer: we were performing on TV, and there were
two of us so, whichever way you sliced it, we were a double act. Writing for kids, it’s important to get inside their heads, and that means laughing at the same things they do, which, in short, consist of farts, burps and hitting people over the head with frying pans. Dean found all that stuff funny because he had the mind of a big kid, and that was really important for the material. The other great thing about Dean was that we
could have a laugh and a drink or ten with him, which always formed a vital part of any professional relationship we created.

The other writer was, to be blunt, downright odd. He was a cross-dressing frustrated performer who would always be very disruptive in meetings. He’d spend most of his time drawing ‘suggestive’ pictures of Conor and showing off to whoever was in the room. As I’ve already told you, performers are all neurotic, insecure and self-obsessed, and he was no different. The important thing was we found him hilarious. His name was David Walliams. You might have heard of him; he’s done a few little bits and pieces on telly since
The Ant and Dec Show
in 1995.

David was, and if he’s reading, still is, a great writer, but there was one drawback – he always tried to write himself into the sketches. There was a sketch we started doing in the second series called Retro Cops, which was basically a
Starsky and Hutch
spoof, with us two dressed up in afro wigs, flares and platform shoes. Despite a reluctance when it came to dressing up in the first series, we’d jumped at doing this particular sketch simply because we found it funny.