‘ANT AND DECON TOPFORM’

Martel on why I’m a Celebrity is off to a flyer

I DON’T think any pay cheque would make me sign up for I’m a Celebrity – the jungle reality show that started this week on STV.

Could any amount of cash be worth eating kangaroo testicles before an audience of millions; showing your wobbly bits in the shower; having your every snore and hunger-fuelled rant filmed and edited to make you look angry, boring, cocky or (and this happens to just a few contestants each year) a good laugh with whom you’d like to be pals?

The way I see it is that most of them come out looking worse than they did when it started, while their kids are at home, scarred after watching mummy or daddy lie in a coffin with 10,000 snakes while eating said testicles.

No thanks.

I am, however, very grateful some people do and I have high hopes for this year’s offering.

Even after the first show, it was clear there could be fireworks.

Big (reported, but I suspect inflated) £500,000 signing, the US reality star Caitlyn Jenner riled viewers with remarks about “Americans always bailing out the Brits” before being voted to do the first trial on the show.

No one can understand Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle’s lovely but incredibly strong Northern Irish accent, with viewers asking for subtitles.

Former England rugby star

James Haskell is a social experiment waiting to happen – a man who normally eats 4,000 calories a day and has sex with wife Chloe Madeley (they’ve talked very publicly about this) almost as often.

He will be deprived of both.

And holding it all together, Ant and Dec, who are not only on top comic form after Ant’s enforced year out, not afraid of making fun of themselves or anyone else – with excellent topical references to news stories including the PR disaster that was Prince Andrew’s interview with journalist Emily Maitlis.

My husband has an aversion to the show – the opening song makes him bristle. But the glue to any good marriage is having two tellies – and I will be tuning in most nights.

Let me know what you think of the series as the drama unfolds.