Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story Read online

  One of our first golfing trips was to Portugal and, unsurprisingly, it ended up with all of us in a bar. One member of our society happens to bear more than a passing resemblance to the jockey, Frankie Dettori. His name is Ian McLeish, and he went into this karaoke bar to buy a packet of cigarettes. The karaoke MC immediately started ribbing him with plenty of ‘Look everyone, it’s Frankie Dettori! Have you lost your horse, Frankie?’ comments. Ian came out and told us, and we all went back in mob-handed to put this bloke in his place.

  Immediately, the man on the mic looks up and says, ‘Look everyone, Frankie’s back, with his mates… Ant and Dec?’ He was a bit lost for words after that. It was just a small bar in a holiday resort in Portugal and, even though we’d gone in there intending to give him a piece of our mind, we ended up staying in there, having a great night and all doing karaoke.

  Jonny Wilkes, who’s never shy when it comes to singing in public, got up and did a bit of Frank Sinatra. He was doing his version of ‘My Way’, and there were a few old couples in tears although, personally, I don’t think Jonny’s singing is that bad. Someone was looking through the song book, and said, ‘Look, they’ve got “Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble”.’ Me and Dec both looked up and barked, ‘No chance.’ Two hours later, we were on stage belting it out. There were so many camera phones in that bar that I’m amazed – and very relieved – that performance never turned up on youtube, although the fact that we bought a round for the whole bar might have had something to do with it – bribery never fails.

  Golf isn’t just about drinking and singing ‘Rhumble’, though, sometimes we actually make it to the course, and it was during a game one day that we had an idea. The Ryder Cup is golf’s biggest event, where teams from Europe and the United States compete against each other. We thought we could do a celebrity version – with American and European celebrities, plus some professional golfers. Originally, we pitched the show to ITV, who wanted to make it but decided they couldn’t afford it. In the end, it went to Sky. We called it The All*Star Cup, and all we had to do then was book a load of famous people who loved playing golf.

  There were two signings that made The All*Star Cup a success. First of all, Scottish professional superstar golfer Colin Montgomery agreed to captain the European team. To get Monty, as his good friends call him (he asked us to call him Mr Montgomery), was a real coup. He is actually the captain of the European Ryder Cup team in 2010, that’s how big he is. The second jaw-dropping booking was Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas. They’re both keen golfers and, with the event being held at Celtic Manor in Wales, Catherine could visit her family and, as for Michael, well, apparently he’d always been a big PJ and Duncan fan, so it was a dream come true. Once we had those three, there were plenty of people who couldn’t wait to sign up. Chris Evans, Ronan Keating, James Nesbitt and Ian Wright all played.

  We also had the legendary Terry Wogan commentating, and he was the perfect person to talk over hours and hours of live golf coverage. That man could talk over hours of live washing-up coverage and it would be entertaining. We were dying to take part in the game too but, because of our contract with ITV, we couldn’t appear on screen and had to settle for a role behind the cameras. We worked closely with the presenters, Kirsty Gallacher and Jamie Theakston, and it was a great success and a proper event, with a massive crowd and great weather. Sometimes, you have ideas for TV shows and they come to nothing, so to sit back and see what we’d created with The All*Star Cup was a huge buzz.

  The game itself couldn’t have been better either. It came down to the eighteenth hole on the final and Ronan Keating sunk the winning putt for Europe to beat America. That evening, we had one of the most bizarre after-show parties we’ve ever been to. It was quite emotional, everyone was hugging us and thanking us, while we were saying, ‘We should be thanking you, all we did was watch.’ Chris Evans had tears in his eyes: he told us we’d given him the chance to feel like a professional golfer and that it was the best weekend of his life – and, if you believe everything you read, that man has had some pretty decent weekends in his time (including one that ended with Dec chucking up in his downstairs toilet). In the bar afterwards there was a three-piece band, and everyone got up and did a song – Ronan, James Nesbitt (who, by the way, has got a lovely voice if the acting work ever dries up), Chris Evans – and yes, we had a go too, I’m afraid to say. The last thing I remember is Charlotte Church, who’d accompanied Gavin Henson, one of the European team, murdering ‘Summertime’ while Michael Douglas, wearing his dressing gown, dragged a tipsy Catherine Zeta Jones to bed. Actually, that may have been while we were singing…

  A year later, The All*Star Cup transferred to ITV, and this time it was hosted by me and Ant. Being producers and presenters at the same time was hard work, and it also meant we didn’t have as much time to get drunk with the teams in the bar, which is of course the most important part of any weekend like that. On the plus side, it meant we didn’t sing at the after-show party.

  We went from summer on the golfcourse to winter in the rainforest and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here! As you’ll know from our ‘Day in the Life’ plate section, we usually arrive on site around 3 a.m., and the first show of the series is always manic: producers and editors are running round with worried looks on their faces, vehicles are coming and going… Our car pulled up to the production office, we clambered out – bleary-eyed, half asleep and not quite sure what day it was, when suddenly, Natalka, the executive producer, came skipping up to us.

  ‘Great news – the series has started with a bang!’

  ‘Wow, what’s happened?’ we asked. ‘A fight already? A budding romance? Someone’s not walked out, have they?’ If we were still stood there now, we could never have predicted what she was about to say.

  ‘Carol Thatcher’s had a piss in the middle of camp and we’ve got it on camera!’

  Carol was what’s technically known as a ‘game old bird’. She was eventually crowned Queen of the Jungle, but was lucky to make it to the end after one of the trials. It involved driving a Mini Moke, which is a kind of miniature jeep, across a huge ravine. She would be harnessed in, so that, when the Moke inevitably came off its tracks, she would be suspended hundreds of feet up in the air. The problem was that Carol got into the Moke and wanted to start it up before she’d even put the harness on and was seconds away from driving across a ravine with no harness and frankly no chance of surviving. Fortunately, Health and Safety got there in the nick of time. Game old bird, or mad posh lady? You decide.

  I can clearly remember the moment I started to think Carol was going to do well. My mam works at Marks & Spencer’s in Newcastle, and she tells me what everyone thinks of all the contestants. Fairly early in the series, I rang home and spoke to her and she told me that her and all the girls at work really liked Carol – she was a bit batty but prepared to give anything a go. It’s always great to get feedback from home, although Dec takes it a bit far, and keeps his mobile switched on while we’re doing the live show.

  It might sound unprofessional, and that’s because it is, but I like getting texts during the show, because you get an instant response to what we’re doing. Someone who sends them quite regularly is David Walliams. One show, he complained that me and Ant were starting to look a bit lacklustre with our opening cry of ‘I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Heeeerrrreeeee!’ on the bridge, so we did it with extra enthusiasm the following day, jumping up and down and looking as excited as possible. Another one was just to tell me that a jacket I was wearing looked ‘a little bit gay’. He’s nice like that, David.

  Cannon and Ball were also in camp that year. It was the first time we’d really had a double act in there, which was great for our links, but a scary glimpse into what the future might hold. The last time we’d seen Tommy and Bobby was about ten years earlier, when the four of us were all on the same episode of Noel’s House Party – they were the star guests and we… weren’t. We were still PJ and Duncan and were playing the
Crinkly Bottom paperboys. Now, all these years later, they were down in the jungle, while we were the hosts of the show. The saddest moment was when Tommy was voted out first – him and Bobby seemed a bit lost without each other. You know what double acts are like, they can be pathetically inseparable – some of them even write their autobiographies together.

  We got back home just in time for Christmas, which we celebrated in the only way we knew how – by making a TV show. It was the first and only Christmas special of Saturday Night Takeaway, and the guest list was fantastic – Little Ant and Dec came back to interview Matt Lucas and David Walliams, we did a sketch with Ricky Gervais, and a massive musical number with Robbie Williams.

  I still think the number with Robbie is one of the best things we’ve ever done – it involved him singing ‘White Christmas’, while we, and a huge male choir, kept interrupting him with vocals that were actually more fronting than backing. It was quite a complicated little piece. In fact, we were a bit worried at first that it was a little too complicated for Robbie. When you rehearse with him, he can seem like he isn’t listening or paying any attention, but the reality is that he’s taking it all in, and on the night, he was, of course, brilliant. He’s a complete all-rounder – he can sing, he can dance, he can do sketches and he can act.

  He makes me sick.

  Chapter 37

  Talking of all-rounders like Robbie Williams, 2006 was the year we approached our career as if it were a tapas menu: we tried a little bit of everything. And first on our list was the nationwide release of Alien Autopsy. One of the best things about your own feature film coming out is that you get to go to your own premiere. After all, we’d have looked pretty stupid if we’d paid to go and see Alien Autopsy at our local Odeon.

  Unless, I dunno, one of us went in disguise, so they could listen to what people were saying about it…

  You didn’t?

  Let’s just get on with the premieres, shall we? Being greedy, we were given not one, not two, but three premieres. Over three nights, we had one in Leicester Square, one in Dublin and one in Newcastle – and, incredibly, Warner Brothers gave us a private jet to travel around in. Yes, really, they gave us a private jet. To think that the first vehicle we ever travelled around in was my MG Metro Turbo and now we were in a private jet. Nothing makes you feel more like a film star – not even being in a film – than travelling in a private jet.

  The Leicester Square premiere was amazing, and Warners’ even put us up at the very posh Claridges Hotel for the night. Chiswick is only eight miles away from central London, so don’t ask me why we got a hotel, but I certainly wasn’t complaining. I told them they could’ve saved their money and just had the jet fly me back home and land in my back garden, but apparently that’s ‘against aviation laws’ or something – spoil-sports. When we were ready to leave Claridges, we said to our publicist, ‘We just can’t wait to get out on the red carpet’ and our publicist said, ‘Er, actually, it’s not a red carpet, it’s a green carpet – you know, ’cos of the aliens?’ We were both a bit disappointed – we might only ever have one film premiere in our lives and we’d hoped for a red carpet. Still, you can’t have everything, can you?

  The whole evening was unforgettable. Tom Cruise may be famous for spending hours with the crowds and talking to everyone, but we out-Cruised Tom that night. We spent about two and a half hours with the crowds – we spoke to people’s mams on their phones, we posed for pictures, signed autographs, we did the lot. In fact, they had to delay the start of the screening, because we were still doing radio interviews in the foyer of the cinema.

  All our friends came to see the film and, afterwards, a lot of them had the same reaction, which was ‘It’s a proper film, isn’t it?’ I don’t know if they were expecting something with sock puppets filmed in Ant’s kitchen, but they seemed genuinely surprised by it.

  The last time we’d been to a premiere in Newcastle was in 1993, to see our last series of Byker Grove at the Civic Centre and, now, thirteen years later, we were at the premiere of our own film in our hometown. We couldn’t resist going to Top Shop to buy a new shirt and then covering ourselves in aftershave, just for old times’ sake.

  The whole Donnelly clan came that night. My sisters spent months wondering what to wear, skipping dessert so they would fit into their new dresses and planning every last detail. The whole thing was perfect – apart from one moment during the film. I was sat in the front row in between my mam and dad when it suddenly dawned on me: I had completely forgotten that, halfway through Alien Autopsy, there’s a bit of a racy scene with me and Amber Fuentes, the sexy TV reporter played by Nicole Hiltz. And to make matters worse, you don’t see any of the ‘raciness’, you just hear it. And it’s loud. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about this before, but it would be fine, I tried to tell myself, you’re a fully grown man, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s only acting after all. I failed to convince myself. Just before it came on, I felt myself getting hotter and hotter, and I slunk down into my seat. It was the same feeling you get when you’re twelve years old, sat in the front room with your parents, and a sex scene comes on the telly. I blushed like I’ve never blushed before. I’m glad the lights were dimmed.

  My mam, Davey, Sarha, Robbie and Emma were all there and, of course Boppa, Athey and Goody – although Boppa left about halfway through. When I asked him why, he just looked at me and said, ‘It’s not really my kind of thing.’ You can always rely on your mates to keep you grounded, can’t you?

  It might not have been Boppa’s ‘kind of thing’, but he still came to the party and drank the free beer afterwards, which was good of him. Me and Dec used to co-own a bar in Newcastle, the Lodge, so we had the party there. Even though it was less than a mile away, we tried to get the private jet to take us there from the cinema to our bar, but the pilot refused – ‘aviation laws’ again. Unbelievable.

  As for the Dublin premiere, it was amazing, emotional and we were very proud. At least that’s what we’ve been told, I can’t remember anything about it – three days of partying had taken its toll by then.

  Once the premieres were over and the film was being shown in cinemas, one of the most exciting moments was when the trailers for it started running on telly – seeing your name and your film advertised on TV for the first time is a really special thrill.

  Speak for yourself. I was at home one day and the trailer came on TV for the very first time. I was out of the room, and Lisa screamed, ‘It’s on! It’s on!’ I ran in, sat next to her on the settee and cranked the volume right up. It looked brilliant – it had that gravel-voiced American bloke doing the voiceover, it was edited really well and me and Lisa just looked at each other and smiled. Our smiles froze when, at the end of the trailer, the gravel-voiced American man said, ‘Alien Autopsy – starring Declan Donnelly and Anthony McFarland’. I rewound it on Sky Plus two or three times to check, but my ears weren’t playing tricks on me, he’d said McFarland, not McPartlin. They’d got my name wrong, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that my surname is definitely McPartlin. I was stunned – the first trailer for my first film and they’d got my name wrong.

  We got in touch with Warner Brothers, and they changed it immediately, but not before it had caused me plenty of embarrassment. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought they should get my name right. You don’t see trailers saying, ‘Starring Brad Pott’ or ‘Featuring Julia Rabbits’, do you?

  The reaction to Alien Autopsy was what people in the industry called ‘mixed’. There were a few critics who didn’t like it, but most people we spoke to thought it was a decent film. We actually got a bigger response from the public when it was shown on Sky Movies a year or so later. Although we had our ups and downs making it, it’s still something we’re both very proud of and, if the right script came along, we’d definitely do a film again.

  One thing I will never, ever do again, though, is try and help out with a baby shower. In 2006, Jonny Wilkes and his wife Nikki were expecting their
first child, and Lisa was hosting a baby shower at her and Ant’s house for Nikki and a load of her friends. They’d made a ‘No Men Allowed’ rule, which was perfect, ’cos me, Ant and Jonny could go to the pub but, before we did, we tried to prove we weren’t totally useless by giving Lisa a hand with the food. Despite my dodgy record with sandwiches and knives, Lisa asked me to cut the crusts off the sandwiches and then take the crusts out to the garden and break them into pieces for the birds. I managed to finish the first bit – cutting off the crusts – without any problem, and then I took the plate out into the garden. While I was out there, I got distracted, went back in and got chatting to Ant and Lisa.

  Half an hour or so later, the boys headed to the pub and left the girls to their baby shower. We had a nice long session and then headed back to Ant’s to feast on what was left of the sausage rolls and bowls of Wotsits, but the moment we set foot in the house, we knew we were in trouble – Lisa had a face like thunder. It transpired that, just at the climax of the baby shower, when all the girls had gathered in the conservatory and Nikki was being given all her presents, one of them happened to glance out of the window and let out a massive scream. They all looked at her, shocked, and she shouted at the top of her voice,