Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story (24 page)

When you’re face to face with kids, day after day, you realize exactly what makes them laugh – and what makes them laugh is fart noises, toilet humour and anything big, silly and visual. They didn’t seem too interested in the latest Jamiroquai B-side. We’d always prided ourselves on knowing who our audience is and understanding what it wants but, this time, we’d got it completely wrong.

When we went back to the TV show after Christmas, we talked to the producers and told them we needed to change everything. We introduced a game called Giant Grabbit, where we hoisted kids into a giant pit of balls to scramble for prizes. We also showed lots of episodes of
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
and, more importantly, engaged with it. We did sketches where I was obsessed with Sabrina and wrote her love poems. We did as much as we could around this crazy teenage witch, because we knew that was what the kids would change channels to see.

Just as the seven dwarves had saved Snow White from the clutches of the evil queen, so the panto had saved Dame Dolly Doughnut’s nephews from being killed off by the evil
Live & Kicking.
And, like all the best stories, this one would have a fairytale ending.

The ratings started to pick up a bit, that’s what Ant’s trying to say – and more kids started watching. We were slowly but surely starting to get the hang of Saturday-morning telly.

Chapter 19

It was at the start of 1999 that we made another huge and very, very difficult decision – to part company with our manager Dave Holly. He’d always said that, if ever we felt we’d outgrown him, to just tell him, and we both felt the time had come.

It was a very tough decision, and not one we took lightly. We were very fond of Dave, his assistant Margaret and his family, and we’ll never forget what he did for us. He had a huge input into the first ten years of our careers, and we’ll always appreciate that.

After we’d made the break from Dave, we started looking for new management. The first meeting we had was at a company called James Grant Management, which was run by Peter Powell, the former Radio 1 DJ, and his business partner, Russ Lindsay. It was a good meeting, even if Pete did keep giving us traffic news and the highest chart climbers of the week, but I suppose old habits die hard. The company had clients like Zoe ‘the enemy’ Ball and Philip ‘not the enemy at all’ Schofield, and a track record for taking presenters from Saturday mornings to prime-time TV. Even though
sm:tv
wasn’t exactly setting the world alight, we knew that was exactly the direction we wanted to go in. In that first meeting, we also met Paul Worsley and Darren Worsley, who are both from Bolton, about the same age but, despite their surname, strangely, not related.

Pete, Russ, Paul and Darren explained they were looking for new, younger clients to represent, and they liked us as performers. Their company offered a full service to their clients and didn’t just represent them but took care of every aspect of their life. We nearly blew the whole thing when Dec asked if that included washing dishes and cooking beans on toast, but thankfully they didn’t hold that against us. At the end of the meeting,
Pete said, ‘Well, I’m sure you’ve got loads of people to see, but we’d love to sign you, so let us know when you’ve seen everyone.’ We said, ‘Oh yes, we’ve got lots of people to see,’ and went on our merry way, but the truth was they were the only people we’d arranged to meet. Me and Dec were walking down the stairs of their office, when I whispered, ‘Shall we go with them?’

‘One step at a time,’ I said to him.

I didn’t know if he meant the agency or the staircase. After all, I am very clumsy.

We pretty much decided there and then to go with James Grant, and we had a moment of déjà vu. Matthew Robinson had told us about the Telstar offer on the stairs at
Byker Grove
, and here we were, making another big decision on the stairs. Even now, when we have to make our mind up about something, we go straight to the nearest staircase.

We didn’t actually tell James Grant for a few days – after all, we might have gone upstairs for a coffee, but we weren’t going all the way on the first date. We led them on for another forty-eight hours or so and then signed – and we’ve been there ever since. Once we’d joined the agency, we were assigned an artist manager, Alison Astall, and, to this day, Ali is absolutely vital to everything we do. She knows the two of us better than anyone.

Except my beautiful wife, of course.

Of course. Ali is our Girl Friday. Although the truth is, she’s more like a girl Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And often Saturday and Sunday too. Ali takes care of everything – she’s in charge of our schedule, she comes to Australia with us for
I’m a Celebrity…
she even sorts out when we get our hair cut. It’s no exaggeration to say that, without Ali, our lives and our career would be total chaos.

Things were beginning to fall into place. At the beginning of 1999, we also settled into our first ever houses. Thanks to the money from panto, and
sm:tv
being commissioned for fifty-two weeks, we knew that, even if the show was axed after a year, we’d be able to save up enough money to pay the mortgages for a while. We’d actually bought them in November, but because of the panto and Christmas at home, it didn’t feel like we moved in properly until the New Year. They were in Chiswick, in West London, and for the record, they were
not
next door to each other – that would be absolutely ridiculous. They were two doors away from each other. People have always teased us about living so close, but we’re best mates and there’s no point in living on the other side of town to each other. Just like Dec with his big family and cousins round the corner, and me with my Nanna and Granda living across the road, we both grew up in houses next to the most important people in our lives, and I suppose this is an extension of that. We never sat down and decided to live next door to each other, it’s just worked out that way, and that’s how we like it.

There was about twenty paces between the two houses, which was great – it was almost like sharing a flat, but with houses, and this time, there was no toss for who got the big bedroom. Living right next to my best mate, I always had someone to talk to but, more importantly, I had somewhere I could open my tins, because for the first year I lived in my house, I didn’t have a tin opener. As you can tell, I wasn’t exactly quick to adapt to the demands of living on my own. I didn’t have any curtains for about six months, so I stuck together a load of flattened-out cardboard boxes with Sellotape and fashioned a makeshift blind. I was really proud of it.

It would have taken less time to go and buy a blind than he spent making that one, but that didn’t occur to him.

I remember getting back from the pub one night and Ant and me went home. I fancied a sandwich, so I got some ham and a packet of cherry tomatoes out of the fridge and then a knife out of the cutlery drawer. Due to having had a couple and to not being a domestic goddess, I decided to use the biggest knife I could find to cut the tiny little cherry tomatoes. The end result was that I missed the cherry tomato and the only thing I ended up slicing was the top of my thumb. It started pouring with blood and it wouldn’t stop. I’m not good with the sight of blood – it makes me feel very faint, almost as faint as the idea of cooking, in fact. I rang Ant, who came over with Lisa and bandaged me up.

He was whiter than the slice of Mother’s Pride on his chopping board when we got there.

Before long, and partly for my own safety, Clare was staying a lot of time at the house, Lisa was at Ant’s, and the four of us were spending loads of time together. Clare used to cook a Sunday dinner at mine, we’d watch videos at Ant’s, or go out for dinners in Chiswick together.

Lisa and Clare always got on well, which made everything so easy – and they’re still very close friends now. Back then, it also meant me and Ant could go to the pub, watch the football and leave them in one of the houses together. They were usually very happy to get shot of us two and tuck into a bottle of wine.

Lisa and Clare would always tease us for spending so much time together, but what they never seemed to notice was that, nine times out of ten, when we were hanging out together, they were hanging out together too. If I spent the weekend in Oxford with Lisa, where she’s from, and Dec went to Hertfordshire with Clare to see her family, when we got back, me and Dec would go for a pint on the Sunday night, and Clare and Lisa would say, ‘Are you happy you’re back with your little friend now?’ but, at the same time, they would be together having a girlie gossip, back with their ‘little friend’ too. It still annoys me now to think about it.

I can see that – my little friend.

The four of us were great together, though, and having our own houses also meant we could have lots of people round. Almost as soon as we moved to Chiswick, everyone started coming back to my house after a night out and, specifically, coming back to my kitchen. Don’t ask me why everyone liked to spend time in the kitchen, not the living room, but that kitchen had more drinking done in it than most pubs in London, so much so that we nicknamed it ‘The Vortex’, because once you got in there, time stood still. We’d get back from the pub after closing time, and the next thing you knew it was three o’clock in the morning.

Years later, when Ant and Lisa moved out of that house, leaving that kitchen behind, it did wonders for my liver.

Although there’s one thing I miss about The Vortex, which is Dec and Lisa doing drunken Michael Jackson dancing. I never got involved personally – I’m not really one of life’s dancers.

Maybe we should enter
Britain’s Got Talent
next year, Lisa and me. What do you think?

No comment.

With a new home, new management and, thanks to panto, a newfound love of childish humour (okay, we’d always had the last one), we set about trying to make the only Saturday-morning show that kids would actually want to watch. Along with Dec’s love poems to Sabrina, we started to dress up as characters from
Pokémon
, the Japanese cartoon that kids everywhere loved in the late nineties. I still couldn’t really tell you a single thing about
Pokémon
, but boy did the kids love those little, er, thingies. This meant that, like the consummate professionals we are, we got very good at pretending we loved those thingies too.

One of the ways we did that was through the Pokéfight. David Staite, our producer, had come up with it, and it was written up by, appropriately
enough, our writer, Dean Wilkinson. It involved me and Dec dressing up as
Pokémon
characters and having a fight. Sounds funny already, doesn’t it? What do you mean, ‘No, not at all’?

Normally, with any sketch we do, we have a lot of input but, with this one, we had to take a leap of faith, because we had no idea what
Pokémon
was or how it worked. Taking a leap of faith on telly is hard enough, but when you’re taking that leap dressed in a wig and talking in a cartoon character’s voice, it’s ten times harder.

That morning, we rehearsed it in front of the crew, who were always a good barometer of whether a sketch was funny or not. The Pokéfight went down like a lead balloon. Even worse, it was too late to change anything about it. I remember coming back after the ad break, getting ready to pokéfight live, fearing the worst, and Sticky, our floor manager, said, ‘Right, everyone, here we go: 10–9–8–7…’ then he stopped mid-count, turned to me and Dec and said, ‘You’re going to die!’, then carried on with “6–5–4–3–2–1.’ Despite the crew’s reaction, and Sticky’s scaremongering, the Pokéfight went on to become a massively popular part of
sm:tv.

As well as
Pokémon
, we also had a cartoon called
Digimon
, which was a
Pokémon
spin-off. Really, don’t ask. After the closing credits of one particular episode, it was my turn to back-reference it, which isn’t easy if you’ve never watched a single episode. In the end, I went for the safe option: ‘More
Digimon
next week. Ah, I love
Digimon
.’ Quick as a flash, Cat turned to me with a glint in her eye and a cheeky smile and said, ‘Do you? Which one’s your favourite?’ I obviously didn’t have a clue – I couldn’t even take a guess at a name – so I replied: ‘What?’ Cat calmly repeated, ‘I said, who’s your favourite
Digimon
character?’ I just thought, ‘You cheeky bitch,’ while stuttering, ‘Oh, I love them all.’

We all loved winding each other up and she’d got me a treat. Cheeky bitch.

We did our fair share of stitching Cat up too. If there was ever a big competition that involved reading out lengthy questions, rules and regulations,
we’d always make Cat do it. I think the moment she rumbled us was after a particularly laborious read for a
Pocahontas
On Ice competition. She shouted, ‘How come I always get this shit to do?’

Slowly, thanks to our clever plan of making a show that actually appealed to children, the ratings started to improve. In the spring, Zoe and Jamie announced they’d be quitting
Live & Kicking
at the end of the current series and, once that happened, we really started to believe we could win the battle against the Beeb. A few months later, Conor ran into the office shouting, ‘We’ve done it, we’ve beaten them!’

After months of slogging our guts out, we were beating
Live & Kicking
in what TV bosses would call the ‘key demographic’ – kids aged between five and fifteen. This was huge – audience research told us that kids that age were in charge of the remote control on Saturday mornings, and the received wisdom was that if we got
them
watching, then the next age group – the sixteen to thirty-fours – would follow. I assume because they couldn’t find the remote, but we didn’t care why, we just wanted people to watch our show.