I’m an embarrassment — please get me in there!

Reptiles, roaches and reputation rehabilitation — a new wave of contestants is on the way to a dark corner of the Australian jungle in a bid to escape reality. As they arrive on set, has a preview behind the scenes

Day one

The Australian Jungle, just outside the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here camp. Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly are dining on roast partridge at a linen-decked table in front of their luxury double-berth Winnebago, after a hard day tormenting Z-listers with Koala sperm for ITV. Suddenly a chilling, yodelling cry is heard in the distance.

Aaaa-ou-aaa-ouaaaagh-oo-aagh-ooh-uuuuugh!

Howay man, what’s that d’you think? Amir Khan having nightmares about the Bush Tucker challenge?

Or another paparazzo trying to get a picture of you looking tired and emotional, who’s fallen into our elephant trap and landed on the spikes.

Pongee?

(Waving hand) Aye, sorry, that foie gras starter is repeating on me.

The cry is heard again, getting louder and closer, and suddenly the broad, furry form of Paul Hollywood swings out of the trees on a vine.

AAAA-OU-AAA-OU-AAAAAGHOOO-AAGH-OOH-UUUUGH!

He loses his grip on the vine and crashes onto their table, obliterating it. He stands amid the wreckage and beats his chest.

Howay, may – you’ve totalled our scran.

Ey, calm down soft lad, don’t start. I’ve just landed up to me oxters in a billabong, me piping bag’s all moist and me bottom’s as soggy as a wet wallaby’s pocket. Where can I get a shower, a fivecourse dinner and a highperformance Aston Martin.

But, what are you doing here, man?

Well, Bake-Off ’s been bought by Australian TV for enough dosh to fill Sydney Opera House and I’m the ONLY one among the presenters, judges, directors, producers, crew and caterers who has stayed loyal and gone with it… (sees their doubtful expressions)… all right, all right: me marriage has gone flat as a drop scone so I thought I’d hide out somewhere no one would find me. So, how’s about sharing your luxury quarters, eh, lads…?

Day two

The following afternoon. Ant and Dec are drinking Earl Grey tea. Paul has fashioned a bunk bed and a rudimentary pastry section in one corner of the clearing and is trying to make flour out of grasshoppers.

Bleedin’ Witchetty grubs and kangaroo ringpieces instead of yeast and icing? Is it too much to ask for hundreds and thousands?

Didn’t you get that from Channel 4?

A sound of stamping feet is heard, getting closer and closer, until into the clearing burst two musclebound Aussies dressed as characters from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, carrying a stretcher on which lies a figure with a scowl and a greying quiff shading himself under an umbrella.

Howay man, Morrissey!?!

Oh God, not more mindless, adulatory fans. I come here for some solitude to write a follow up to my best-selling novel, a sequel to my autobiography — which was a modern classic, it said so on the cover — and an album of solid-gold English Defence League crowd-pleasers, and I still find myself surrounded by ghastly hoi polloi. (He gives the Aussie bearers some black-and-white photos of himself as payment.) If you want them signed, that’s extra. I hate bloody gays, even though I am one. (As they leave he shouts after them) And you shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

(Brandishing a baguette made