My Time in the Jungle

Peter Fincham on visiting the set of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here!

The journey begins in Surfers Paradise, a town on the Queensland coast which is not as heavenly as it sounds. From there, you drive inland past large commercial farms. It’s all a bit dreary. There’s a sign to Tropical Fruit World, a theme park devoted to – well – tropical fruit.

The coastal strip is flat, but a few miles inland the road starts to rise. More farms, horses in fields, nicely mown lawns. All very Home Counties. And then, less than 20 minutes after you’ve left your hotel, you suddenly notice you’re in a small area of tropical rain forest. Poking through the lush vegetation are lighting gantries and walkways. There’s an entire village made up of portable cabins, catering tents and OB trucks. People are swarming around wearing earpieces. You’ve arrived.

You’re given a plastic lanyard to identify yourself, and a safety briefing in case you get stung by a scorpion. Then you’re led by a production assistant through a maze of footpaths.

As you approach the viewing platforms you’re asked to keep your voice down. The camera operator greets you in a gruff Australian voice and moves over so that – if you’re lucky! – you can catch a brief glimpse of the campmates.

Not for long – what if an argument breaks out? What if the vaguely-remembered sports star attacks the annoying soap actor they’d never heard of until the first day of filming? You’d feel pretty bad if the team missed the vital moment because the boss from ITV insisted on hogging the best view.

The overall mood is one of languid boredom. The tropical heat saps your energy. If you’ve just flown in from the UK, you’re seriously jet-lagged.

A theme park where the theme is tropical fruit

During my time as Director of Television at ITV (2008-16) I visited GMOOH twice. The first time, it was won by the Italian celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo. The second time, I can’t actually remember. This is the thing about reality shows – they burn brightly while they’re on, and fade quickly afterwards. Bizarre juxtapositions of celebrities are pitched together and develop overnight friendships, only to realise a few weeks later that they’ve got nothing in common.

When contestants are evicted they are sequestered in the gaudy surroundings of the nearby Versace Hotel. I once spent a couple of hours there, chatting aimlessly to former page 3 girl Sam Fox and former heavyweight champion Joe Bugner. They were sipping cocktails by the pool and seemed the best of buddies. I wonder if they still exchange Christmas cards?

For the past couple of years GMOOH hasn’t been in Australia at all, but in a dilapidated Welsh castle. Ratings suffered – the appeal of the series is at least partly that it gives the viewers a free holiday in the sunshine when Christmas is on the horizon.

This year audiences are up again, which is partly down to the much-publicised participation of former Health Secretary and national punchbag Matt Hancock.

When the cheery Matt announced he was joining the cast he said something about wanting the public to get to know him in an unfiltered, honest way. Up to a point, Matt! The GMOOH camp resembles the House of Commons more than you might think – a lot of people sitting around doing surprisingly little, striking poses to impress the people who vote for them, and with cameras watching their every move.

Unfiltered it isn’t – those producers and editors who slave through the night creating VT packages have the power to make you look like anything from a national treasure to a complete wally.

At the time of writing, Matt has performed numerous bush-tucker trials and survived multiple evictions. His predicted early demise has proved to be much exaggerated. He’s worked tirelessly to endear himself to the other campmates, and revealed parts of his backstory – the near-bankruptcy of his step-father’s business, for instance – that are designed to make him relatable to the general public.

The campmates seem to have warmed to him and no longer speculate about his reasons for being there. No doubt he’s doing it partly for the money, but then again – who isn’t? He’s even started to acquire female fans – an article in the Daily Mail the other day described him as “buff”.

Matt’s apparently trousering £400,000 but the producers know that how much you’re paid is completely unrelated to how long you last. During my time the biggest cheque I can remember signing off was to former politician and daytime TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk. He was paid a fortune but was the first to be voted off by the public. The same happened to Noel Edmonds. Matt’s provided more value for money already.

Some reality shows – Strictly Come Dancing, The Great British Bake-Off – require a degree of skill, but GMOOH doesn’t. It’s a popularity contest pure and simple. Of course, politics has been edging in the same direction for years – what is the career of Boris Johnson other than the triumph of appeal over ability?

Boredom is the big enemy. People talk about the challenge of eating kangaroo testicles, but contestants tell you that what really gets to them is that you’ve got nothing to do for days on end. Books and magazines aren’t allowed – even a copy of the Idler, apt though that would be.

After a day or two hanging around the production offices, the only thing left for the boss from ITV to do is head for the airport.

Landing in the UK, the jungle seems impossibly far away, but there it is, on your screens, still pulling in nine million viewers a night. I remember telling my children that I’d been standing 15 feet away from Ant and Dec when the show was being broadcast. “I know,” said my son, “I could hear you laughing at their jokes.”

GMOOH is a unique programme and it’s done wonders for some contestants’ careers, and the opposite for others. It’s still a bit early for Matt – will he regret taking ITV’s bag of gold? Time will tell. Was it worth him sacrificing his political credibility for? That begs another question. One thing’s for sure, by the New Year – by Christmas – we’ll have mainly forgotten about it. Who won in 2021 or the year before that? I’m guessing you can’t remember. Me neither.

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