‘It’s so good to be back!’
Davina, you’re back hosting Big Brother (sort of…)?
I can’t believe it’s been 20 years! When I first got the call, they said, ‘ Big Brother’ and I said, ‘Yes!’ They asked me if I wanted to know what the show was about and I said, ‘No it’s fine, I’ll do it!’ Stuff that I do now is very sensible, so it will be nice to watch back some irreverent TV again.
You fronted it for 11 years – dream job?
Oh my God. I loved it so much – so, so much! There was the cult of Big Brother, where a certain group of people were as obsessed as me and we could talk about it forever. It became a sort of clique that we were all a member of. Also, I LOVE live television. There’s no point in filming something live if there’s no danger of it going wrong, which it often did on Big Brother. It was so very exciting and that’s what people were
watching for.
Stand-out moments?
The first couple of series, we didn’t know how anything would pan out. Then people used to say, ‘Oh, it’s a set up’ or, ‘The producers are fixing it’, but actually, we never knew what was going to happen. I remember there was a task where my producer said we were going to put the housemates in cardboard boxes. I said, ‘Are you sure? That’s going to be the most boring bit of telly ever!’ It turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never laughed so hard!
Tell us about the specials?
There’ll be footage that everyone will remember that we can’t NOT include. But trying to think of a favourite series is quite difficult because there were so many moments that played a special part in my life. I’d forgotten that Alison Hammond and Adele Roberts were Big Brother housemates – and now they’re mega famous. It’s so good to be back!
You’ve said you often quote Big Brother at least once a week. Such as…?
If ever my kids say, ‘Can you pick me up from the station?’ I say, ‘I’M COMING TO GET
YOU!’ and slightly laugh to myself. Some of the quotes the housemates came out with were also amazing.
You’ll be presenting this show with Rylan?
He’s an absolute genius. He’s also a Big Brother nerd – so to be able to do it with him (remotely, of course) is lovely.