I'm a Celebrity Stand In
We're not really sure what could be worse than being one of the "celebrities" in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here (which starts on Sunday ITV1), other than maybe being a stand in for I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
The celebrity status of that show has always been pretty dubious, but this year we must be becoming more of a celebrity fan than we thought. In fact we think the celeb stand-in's are actually more famous than some of the Y list celebs that made the grade.
Who is Nancy Sorrell for example? (OK - I looked it up - she's married to Vic Reeves, so I suppose has the equivalent status of Hell's Kitchen star Abi Titmuss - ex girlfriend of John Leslie). Probably, put into the show as she's most likely to get her baps out (she was also a former lap dancer, so the odds on this are fairly high).
One of the stand ins for I'm a Celebrity is Toby Anstis who's a reasonably well known DJ on Heart FM and also a fairly well known and affable children's presenter. The other stand in is Jayne Middlemiss who used to present Top of the Pops and other "yoof" culture shows on TV.
Now surely these two have more celeb status than Nancy Sorell, nightclub owner Fran Cosgrave, and has-been comedian squeaky voiced Joe Pasquale, who is unbelievably the favourite to win.
How poor must your audition have been if you didn't quite make the grade? But it's likely that you're not really judged on how much of a celebrity you are, rather than how much of a pain in the arse you're going to be.
Let's face it - likeable average happy go lucky people aren't really going to have viewers phoning up in their millions dying to get them off the show.
Also, there's the perverse voter who votes the likeable people off so that all the remaining celebs can get into fist fights and slanging matches and ideally walk off the show, in a hissy fit (like Johnny Rotten former punk, and Daniella Westbrook - former person with no nose).
So poor Toby and Jayne Middlemiss probably shouldn't be pitied. After all, they get flown off to Australia for a few weeks and don't have to face the hilarious Bushtucker Trials of eating bugs, getting thrown into swamps, walking across rope bridges while being ridiculed by pint sized presenters Dec and Ant (mmmm, sounds too much like decadent when put that way round).
Perhaps every celeb should aim at being the person who almost made I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
