Dom Joly

April 2011

WHAT I meant was, that Trigger Happy TV was in a similar vein as Game For A Laugh and Candid Camera, the hidden camera show. Not at all, says its star Dom Joly

“Game For A Laugh was naff,” he says.

“Really old Candid Camera were quite cool and weird and then it became so boring, repeating the same joke.

“We wanted to make something that was really cool. We weren’t interested in people’s reactions or having studios or who I was. You could watch Trigger Happy and I’m in every scene but you didn’t know who I was.

“It was just about: ‘Is it funny?’ That was it.”

The Channel 4 show which ran for three series, saw Joly bawling into a giant mobile phone and dressing as a snail to make his way very slowly over a zebra crossing.

“I don’t think people ever realised the amount of thought and detail that went it to making it. We weren’t just a bunch of drunk students. Well, we were...”

There are no plans to reprise the show but he and co-writer Sam Cadman are working on a new hidden camera film.

“We’re developing the Ben Hur of hidden camera movies,” he laughs. “I’ll have to get a new catchphrase now, too, as I still get ‘Hello!’ shouted at me about ten times a day.”

More recently he was in the jungle alongside Stacey Solomon, Shaun Ryder and Gillian McKeith in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here.

He’ll be discussing both and more at Nottingham Playhouse this summer using slides and video clips as part of his Welcome to Wherever I Am Tour.

“It’s the first time I’ve done anything live,” he says.

Why?

“Public speaking and being myself is probably my biggest phobia. In everything I’ve done before I’ve been either dressed as a squirrel or whatever.”

He adds: “Everyone assumes I’ve done stand-up or live stuff before but I haven’t and in a way that bugged me. If I have any skill it’s probably lying and making stuff up and I thought that should work in a live arena.”

He’s quick to point out that it’s a not stand-up show.

“I don’t tell jokes. But I’ve had such a weird ten years since Trigger Happy came out. I’ve done such odd things, from being a paparazzi to travelling the world to going in the jungle. And I thought it would be a really weird, sort of guide to how not to have a career in showbusiness.

“Including breaking my foot doing Total Wipeout. As I was being put in an ambulance in Argentina, the director leaned in and said ‘it’s probably no consolation to you now but we got some great angles’.”

The BBC TV show sees contestants battle it out on an assault course in Argentina.

“I watch it with my kids and it’s the first thing I’ve done that they’re proud of,” says the dad of two, aged ten and six.

“It was brilliant. It’s like being let on the big bouncy castle. I was going to Antarctica anyway when they asked me to do the show, so I thought they can pay for me to go to Argentina, I’ll be my kids’ hero, then I can go on to Antarctica. But I came back five days later with four broken metatarsals.”

His fellow contestants on the show, which Joly says won’t be broadcast until the end of the year, he didn’t know.

“There were a couple of Olympians which I thought was a bit unfair. I don’t think they expected me to do very well but I did all right.”

The holiday in Antarctica never happened but it ensured he finished writing the show, which will also include tales from Trigger Happy TV of stunts that went awry and weird photographs from his travels.

Joly has been skiing down volcanoes, holidayed in Chernobyl and North Korea, tried flying across the Grand Canyon strapped to an eight-foot rocket and been arrested in Switzerland while dressed as a yeti.

Audiences will also have the opportunity to stone him.

“Since I’m famous for being in the jungle and having Stacey Solomon throwing a stone at me, I’ve had 500 fake stones made that you can buy in the interval and throw at me. But please don’t bring your own.”

And if you see him wandering around the city, resist the temptation to shout “HELLO!”

“It’s really nice that people remember me for that and I don’t mind but everyone who does it thinks that they’re the very first person to have thought of it. And they look a bit surprised when I don’t look thrilled.”

He adds: “It confuses the kids when I’m with them and someone does it, so I sat them down to watch Trigger Happy TV. I thought it would be great, you know there are squirrels and dogs, they’re going to love it. Nothing. Not one laugh. And they both looked round at me: ‘Dad, is this really what you do?’”

 Dom Joly’s Welcome To Wherever I Am comes to Nottingham Playhouse June 21. Tickets are £19.50, call 0115 941 9419.

Stacey Solomon

February 2010

“Who are you?” she giggles when I call.
I’m the 13th Duke of Wybourne... no she wouldn’t understand that Fast Show reference. Stacey Solomon is only 20. And there’s a lot she doesn’t understand.
Such is her scatterbrain charm, that -- alongside a vaulting voice -- resulted in her coming third, behind Olly Murs and Joe McElderry in the sixth series of the X Factor.
There have been rumours of a romance with Olly.
“They’re just funny I think because me and him get on so well. We’re just like, if only people knew the truth it’d be really funny.”
The truth being that they’re not going out. Keep up.
You’re more like brother and sister, then?
“Yeah, we are like brother and sister.”
So you’re single?
“Yeah.”
What do you look for in a man?
“Someone funny. I used to out with these really ugly people because they’re funny.”
I’m sure they’d be delighted to hear that.
She adds: “Looks don’t really bother me. I’m a personality person.”
What about an England footballer, I hear there’s one who has just become available?
“Oh I’m sure there’s a few available,” she titters.
Eh? She didn’t get that. Oh she did...
“I want someone loyal, someone faithful.”
And someone prepared to look after her two-year-old son Zacharay.
“Yeah but I’m not a looker. I wouldn’t really go out and look for someone. I think if you are going to be with someone you just meet them. It just happens.”
She claims that being on the X Factor hasn’t meant more blokes chatting her up.
“Not that I’ve noticed anyway.”
Stacey is in Cardiff when we speak, on The X Factor Live Tour 2010 that includes eight of the finalists from the last series, among them John and Edward Grimes a.k.a. Jedward.
I bet they’re annoying, aren’t they?
“Not at all no. I think they’re the funniest people I’ve ever met. They hilarious.”
Everyone on the tour is, she says, “lovely” but she spends most playtime with Olly and the twins.
During the show Stacey sings Who Wants To Live Forever?, What A Wonderful World and The Scientist plus I’ve Got A Feeling and You Are Not Alone with the rest of the finalists.
There’s footage of the Michael Jackson song on YouTube where each walks out to begin a new line of the song, except Jedward. They appear not to be singing.
“You probably can’t hear them because everyone’s cheering so much,” she says.
“People are going mad. I can’t really hear what’s going on because of the screaming.
“It’s fun ain’t it? I would. Every concert I’ve ever been to I’m jumping up and down screaming.”
Her first was the Spice Girls when she was just six.
“I think when you’re a kid whatever’s in is in, ain’t it? And I thought they were the best thing ever when I was little.”
But it was boy band Five who dominated the wall space when she was growing up.
That was in Dagenham, Essex, which has prompted her being given the label, Dagenham Diva.
“It makes me larf. I never do anything really diva-ish.”
Is she loaded now, since being on the X Factor?
“No! Who’s rich? No one is ever rich. Even if you earn loads of money the taxman takes half.”
Little bit of politics...
Of course, she hasn’t earned a huge amount since appearing on the show. That will come with a Leona Lewis style record deal, which Stacey is still seeking.
“The ultimate is to get a record deal and be really successful but I’d like to do other things as well, like presenting and theatre work.”
If she has to go back to Havering College to finish her performing arts diploma then so be it.
“I don’t see any shame in going back.”
For now she’s enjoying the spotlight playing to sold-out arenas.
So you’re on stage about half-an-hour in total?
“Summink like that, don’t ask me, it just flies by.”
But it leaves you with a lot of free time backstage. What do you do?
“You have to keep getting ready, the changes are quite quick, you have a break where you have to meet guests... you don’t really stop to be honest.”
Her son is with her today but not for the whole tour.
“Because we are here for a whole week he can settle but I won’t drag him everywhere.”
Does he know what mum’s doing?
“Not at all and he doesn’t care. He just enjoys the food.”
And lots of attention, no doubt.
“Too much attention.”
He’s not the only one. The tabloids have enjoyed running stories on Stacey -- and they’re not always correct.
“There are so many things I’ve looked at and thought ‘huh!’ The funniest was the other day when I walked out my house with no make-up on and really horrible clothes because I was going for a spray tan and you don’t want to get spray tan over your nice clothes. And they were like ‘Stacey’s not doing so well, look at her in her normal clothes’. God forbid I should go out the house in normal clothes!”
The tour, which comes to the Trent FM Arena on Monday and Tuesday, will be her first visit to Nottingham. And she has no idea what to expect.
What about Robin Hood?
“Oh yeah, Robin Hood and Little John. Where’s Sherwood Forest, is that in Nottingham (which she pronounces “No-i-gum”)?
It’s in Nottinghamshire.
“Is that inside No-i-gum?”
It’s in the county.
“Have you got a little memorial?”
There’s a statue.
“Ohhh!” she gasps.
“Wicked. I’m a bit of a fan of things like that.”

The X Factor Live Tour 2010, Trent FM Arena, March 1 and 2, 7.30pm, £28.50, 08444 124624, www.trentfmarena.com