Ant and Dec on 25 years in showbiz: Our early shows were awful - Mirror Online TV Ant and Dec on 25 years in showbiz: Our early shows were awful In the latest of a series of interviews to celebrate 25 years in the business, Ant and Dec reflect on their time working with Cat Deeley Share Ant McPartlin (left) and Dec Donnelly meet Cat Deeley (Photo: ITV) Share Get celebs updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email They are two of the best-loved and most decorated presenters on TV. But Ant and Dec have confessed that their early television shows were 'awful'. The pair said that they were lucky to survive the axe following dwindling ratings for ITV programmes such as SMTV and CD:UK, which they presented alongside Cat Deeley in the 1990s. Recalling the Saturday morning children's shows, Ant explained: “Normally on those shows you have a summer show and autumn winter show. “With SMTV it was a very brave decision by ITV to commission it for a year.

It was so awful to start with and the ratings were so low to start with we might never have made it past the first six months." The duo, both 38, first rose to fame as actors on the children's television show Byker Grove, before going on to launch a pop career as PJ & Duncan. Ant and Dec with new presenter Cat Deeley July 1998 on television programme SMTVLIVE They began their television careers in 1994, when they co-presented a Saturday morning children's show entitled Gimme 5 on CITV. The show only lasted two series before being dropped from the airwaves. However, they have since gone on to present some of Britain's most successful shows including The X Factor, and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and winning a string of BAFTA and National Television Awards. "It was really, really where we cut our teeth TV-wise. That was where we served our apprenticeship, doing three hours of live TV 48 weeks of the year,” said Dec. "We got better, we had more fun. We were enjoying it more. We were pushing the boundaries a bit of Saturday morning telly and trying new things.

For the first time we did a game show, Challenge Ant, where if kids gambled and lost they walked away with absolutely nothing. Ant would get up and shout at them `you're thick'. That was the first time that had been done on kids telly. "When we used to watch some BBC kids' shows it felt like some of the presenters were parental figures, we wanted to be their cheeky uncles really, their fun uncles, and speak to them on their level." Co-presenting the shows with Ant and Dec was Cat Deeley. "Cat helped," said Ant. "She was great. We instantly got on with Cat as soon as we met her. We were going to meet a number of female TV presenters, Cat was the first and we had such a laugh with her and she embarrassed the pair of us, we gave her the job there and then. We didn't bother seeing anyone else." "The thing about CD:UK was, because the show started quite small with small viewing figures and it built and built, the bigger the figures got, the better and bigger the pop star you got. Also you were more credible as you had been on air a few years," says Ant.

“By the time we'd left, we'd interviewed everybody from teenage pop sensations to Paul McCartney and U2. They were the last two interviews we did. It was brilliant to go from kiddie bands to goliaths of the rock and music industry. It was where we wanted to be. I was very star struck with Paul McCartney, very stuttery." The pair have also revealed that it was the Pop Idol final in 2002, featuring Will Young and Gareth Gates, that helped spark their later success on primetime TV. They have also credited the show with spawning the idea for their quirky side-of-stage interviews with the contestants that have proved so popular on the X Factor. "That final was just amazing," said Dec. "And for us, for it to be our first big prime time series which we had taken charge off, that first final was electric. I think it is the most amazing TV studio atmosphere we have had." Ant added: "The whole week leading up to that final as well. We had two buses that would travel around London and the country, and doing interviews. You were either Will or Gareth, it was a simple as that. "It was brilliant.

That electric moment when we announced the winner, that it was Will, and it was a shock as well, as everyone thought Gareth would get it, as teenage girls would vote and that's what would swing it. "When it wasn't and the news coming through out ears was telling us the winner is Will, well, we looked at each other and it was like `don't look surprised in case Will or Gareth looks over', so we had to keep it very straight faced. That helped us to deal with that situation in the later years, but nothing comes close to that one." Dec said: "To be in the middle of it, in the eye of that storm, was incredible, amazing - people stopping you in the middle of the street asking who we wanted to win. It was all everybody was talking about at the time." “We had tried a little bit of doing prime time, we always wanted to move into that. "We did Friends Like These on BBC and Slap Bang on ITV which didn't work as well. We had a meeting with ITV and they said they had this format. It was just after Popstars had put Hear'Say together.

"We have this idea for a show, called Pop Idol, this time the public decides and we are looking for hosts for it. You don't have to tell us right now, go away and think about it. We looked at each other in the meeting and said we don't have to, we will do it, we love it, we were huge fans of Popstars. So we accepted it there and then. "We started working on the show and going to few of the auditions. We quickly realised it was going to be big and it was going to be our route into prime time TV and the amount of work we were putting into it, it was going to be pretty impossible to do Saturday mornings. So with heavy hearts we had to say goodbye to Saturday mornings. Ant and Dec present a new series of Pop Idol on ITV1 (Photo: Thames Production / ITV) "We were never supposed to be a part of the audition shows. They said why not come down to some of the auditions, see how it is going to work." Ant added: “So we stood in the audition rooms and watched some of the awful ones and giggled away.

“We started talking to the auditionees, the kids, as they recognised us from Saturday mornings, and they could talk to us as they thought we were approachable. “We would put our arms around them, listen at the door to some of the auditions, and it just happened really organically - they would come out and cry on our shoulder or give us a hug or explain what was going on." "There were all these young producers running around with cameras and they would start filming that, us watching at the doors,” said Dec. “Once they do a day's filming, the go away, cut it together and see what it looks like. "We got a call to the office saying the stuff you are doing outside with the kids is brilliant, can you come and do more auditions. "We guess we can. We went to Glasgow and Manchester and the next thing we knew we were listening at the door to all the auditions. It became part of the audition process. Now you always have the host at the side, but it was never in the plan initially." For tickets for Ant and Dec's Takeaway on Tour, log on to Like this? Did you know we have a dedicated TV and Film page on Facebook?

Simon Garfield meets Ant and Dec | From the Observer | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close The most striking thing about Ant and Dec is not that you can't tell them apart, but that you can: apart from the light entertainment and children's shows that went before them, and apart from other people who made it famous and rich when they were young. Ant and Dec , both aged 26, represent a new generation of TV hosts - not comedians (though occasionally they can be funny), not singers (though they used to do that all the time) and not really celebrities (few tantrums, very polite when you meet them, only one uncharacteristic incident at a lap-dancing establishment) - but they can stand in front of a camera and talk to it as if it was a friend they used to know from school. To do this without artifice is a very valuable thing in television. You can twist yourself in awful knots trying to explain their achievement, but all you need to understand is that they used to climb trees and weren't the sort of people who liked to watch children's television with an educational flavour.

Their appeal is embedded in a little-remembered programme, their first, that went out at teatime in 1996. The Ant and Dec Show on Children's BBC featured a novel item called Beat The Barber, a quiz in which young people could win fantastic prizes such as computer consoles. Unfortunately, the child who got the least correct answers had their head shaved. 'The kids loved it,' Dec says. 'We were going to shave eyebrows instead, but nobody was sure if they'd grow back, so we did heads.' But there was outcry from middle England, and the BBC got 45 complaints. Someone said it reminded them of the concentration camps. Before this, before they did SM:tv on ITV, before they hosted Pop Idol and the Brits, before they became the new Likely Lads and took responsibility for the dodgy official England World Cup song ('Campbell to Rio, Rio to Scholesey...'), they used to hang out at a fictional youth club in Newcastle called Byker Grove, and it is here that they met at the age of 13 and became friends.

Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly both liked Newcastle United football club and the same sort of pop music, and they were soon intertwined in the televised storylines, including a love triangle in which Ant went blind after a paint-balling accident. They earnt £300 an episode. Dec bought himself a sky-blue MGB Metro turbo and thought he was it. They were in the series for five years, and had to leave because, as Ant recalls, '18-year-olds should be getting drunk and they don't hang around youth clubs unless there's something wrong with them'. As was to be the pattern for their entire career, a new opportunity presented itself immediately. Towards the end of their Byker Grove stint, their characters PJ (Ant) and Duncan sang a song in a nightclub. In the series, the song, called 'Tonight I'm Free', was bootlegged by the club's unscrupulous owner, and released as a single. PJ and Duncan made nothing, and split up vowing never to be a part of the music industry again. Then they got offered a little money to be a part of the music industry again, and leapt at it: a three-album deal.

The single ('Tonight I'm Free', re-recorded but still lousy) reached number 63 in the charts, and the next single made the top 30, and the single after that, the top 10. Their album was recorded and they went around the world miming to it on children's television shows. How bad were the songs? Ant: 'Some of the early ones were pretty poor. But there's some stuff I'm proud of. Not that I'd necessarily put it on at home. I did always think, "How long can we possibly get away with this?"' The first album sold about half a million. They didn't write any of the songs. For the second album they wrote half the songs and it didn't do as well. Then for the third album they wrote all the songs, and it sold terribly. They earnt some money, but the big perk was an explosion of available girls. 'Germany was the best,' Dec says. 'We were at this after-show party in a hotel, having a few drinks. When we left the party, there was a line of girls sitting outside. We said goodnight to them and got into the lift.

The next day somebody explained to us that all those girls are there for the taking, and you just point to them and take them back to your room. We said, "You can't just do that. You've got to buy a drink and make conversation." I didn't think all that stuff actually happened.' Ant: 'I never got too bothered with that kind of stuff, probably because most of our fans were very, very, very young.' They are recalling these days on the sunny balcony of a photographer's studio in west London. They're taking turns with ham baguettes, one speaking as the other eats, the ideal way to avoid their habit of finishing each other's sentences. It's true what people say: there's little difference on or off the television, and little difference between them and the people currently adjusting their cuffs for photos. Their earnings are not visible in their clothes - jeans, tracksuits - although their wrists are troubled by very elaborate watches. And they don't try to be especially funny, thank God. The photographer Harry Borden has just had them holding hands and posing with bananas, and has shown them some photos he took when they were on tour years ago.

Some of the pictures show a group of frantic fans with handwritten signs, one of which says, 'Put Your Nobs in Our Gobs'. Dec: '"Point your Erection in my Direction" - that was another one.' Ant: 'Nobs in their Gobs... If we'd said, "Go on, then," we would have got arrested.' Dec: 'It's like that joke: What's got 40 legs and no pubic hair? The front row of a PJ & Duncan concert.' The pair had enough after three albums, and threw in the pop-star career at the age of 21. By then there was also a television career, and small heads to be shaved. It's hard for young people to fight the desire to set yourself apart from the rest of the world, but not doing so can also bring its rewards. Ant and Dec's work for kids will be most fondly remembered for SM:tv Live, a Saturday ITV show that reminded thirtysomethings of Tiswas. It mowed down the opposition on BBC, and it grounded their reputation as presenters who worked hard at even the most trivial things.

The show also established distinct characters: Ant was the harsh one, slightly coarse, looked like a male Victoria Beckham; Dec was sweeter, more vulnerable, less likely to thump you. Together they found a way to talk to kids without appearing naff, although the first few shows were disasters. 'Bad ratings, badly executed ideas,' Ant says. 'There were many anxious nights when I thought, "That's it for us." Thank God ITV had the courage to say, "You've got a year to get it right."' The show took shape after a panto season during which the pair rediscovered how to talk to their audience. Ant: 'They confirmed that what the BBC was doing was a bit patronising and just boring. They had a four-minute item on asthma.' Dec: 'Longer. They would literally do a seven-to nine-minute piece on asthma with an agony uncle.' Ant: 'But when I was a kid I hated that sort of stuff. I'd always rather watch cartoons or climb a tree.' They performed sketches about fancying people on television. Some began comparing Ant and Dec with Morecambe and Wise, which was absurd even on the most superficial level: there was no straight man and no funny man.

'It's a very hard thing to explain when we sit with writers on our shows,' Ant says. 'But then if they show us a sketch, instinctively we'd know who we'd play. For instance, if one of us had to get pregnant, it would be me.' The pair never disrespected their medium. 'We never wanted to move to a niche slot at 11 at night so that we could be a lot cleverer and bluer,' says Ant. 'We just want to do those big light-entertainment shows we loved as kids.' Dec: 'When we were first doing kids' shows with the BBC they asked us where we wanted to be in a few years' time and we said we want to be where Noel Edmonds is.' Noel Edmonds is now surplus to television requirements, of course. Even Jim Davidson's Generation Game has been seen off by Ant and Dec and Pop Idol, the unexpected hit of the year. 'Most people their age would be just learning about television,' says Claudia Rosencrantz, the controller of network entertainment at ITV, who says she watched them on Saturday mornings even before she had children.

'But they've grown up within television.' Rosencrantz believes their appeal is simple: you just want to spend time with them. 'They enjoy making each other laugh,' she says, 'and you watch them and think, "I'd like to be their friend."' Their role on Pop Idol was choosing to be friends with the contestants, bringing them down gently in the face of an embarrassing performance or a kicking from the judges. Their schtick was: it's a heartless world, and we were useless once, too. But not everyone has fallen for their self-deprecating charms. At the end of last year, the comedian Arthur Smith reasoned that their growing success was unpalatable, and hypocritical: like so many television stars, they pretended to be normal people while also being millionaires driving the fancy cars. 'The reason I don't love the twinkly Geordie duo is that they are so lovable,' he wrote in The Guardian. His considered opinion was that they were 'crap', a verdict inspired by some of the gush that ensued when the pair announced that they would be leaving SM:tv Live last December. 'Goodbye Ant. Goodbye Dec,' one paean ran.

'Saturday mornings will be an empty, desolate, joyless place without you.' The tabloids and celebrity magazines have had a quiet time with them, for which they're grateful. Ant: 'We're never really spotted falling out of nightclubs. We don't go to places where there are photographers hanging out.' But there was one incident last October. Dec: 'It was a Sunday exposé. We went lapdancing. We were pissed. It was a lads' night out. There were loads of us. I don't want to dwell on it.' Ant: 'Mostly, we're a bit cleverer than that.' 'They're very smart - very clever about the choices they make,' Claudia Rosencrantz says. Clearly, she is delighted to have found two reasonably cool people in their mid-twenties who do not regard light entertainment as a dirty phrase. She has several new Ant and Dec projects lined up, all brokered through the pair's own independent production company. A reworking of Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads was broadcast last night. The pair are nervous about how people might react.

'Some people are very cynical about it, but we're not trying to replace Bob and Terry,' Ant says, having just done so. 'The reaction among people we talk to in Newcastle is, "Great, can't think of two better lads to do it. But don't fuck it up."' The updates included replacing references to Enoch Powell with Ann Widdecombe, and substituting the barbershop scene at the beginning with a coffee-bar scene. Bob (Dec) does that mega-mocha-grand-latte-half-skimmed-chocolate-sprinkles-no-cinnamon bit, and Terry is appalled and has a cup of tea. There are two other ideas for new primetime Saturday-evening series for next month. The first has involved the duo in many meetings with Granada and the Independent Television Commission over a brilliantly simple format which would appear to be very difficult to engineer - a live quiz show in which the winning contestant takes home the entire contents of the advertisements broadcast while the programme was on air. The adverts would be watched like never before, and their price of transmission could become astronomical, but there are complexities in franchise regulations and in syndicating the same ads throughout the country with out regional variations.

The other programme sounds good, too: finding the people who wrote in to Jim'll Fix It but failed to have their wishes acted upon, and doing them now. These shows were under discussion when I met Ant and Dec for the second time in an office at the LWT building on the South Bank, during which they were clearly frustrated that they still didn't know what they'd be allowed to do next. I wondered for how long people would refer to them by their first names alone, and would there be Ant and Dec at 60? It wasn't a problem, they said, for they doubted they'd be presenting television much beyond the age of 55. They hoped they would be friends for ever, and said they argued only when they were drunk. Eventually it was time to ask them about their houses, which are two doors down from each other in a private mews in Chiswick, west London. This was a bit like how the Beatles lived in Help!, but that was a movie. Morecambe and Wise didn't live together except in sketches; even Bob and Terry lived in different parts of town.

When they shared a flat in the early days, and went on holidays together, people assumed they were gay, but this is not the case: they have seven- and nine-year relationships with women - a singer and an actress. But they live alone in their houses, which are still only two doors away no matter where you stand in the street. So what on earth were they thinking? Dec: 'I knew a new development in Chiswick that was being built. There were two or three houses unsold, and when I went along to look at one of them I asked Ant to come along for his opinion.' Ant: 'I had a look at one. I went in. I loved it. Then we both said, "No, we can't do this - it's ridiculous."' Dec: 'It was a lovely sunny day, and there was a pub a few hundred yards away, and we sat by the river and had a drink and talked about how we both loved the houses, but couldn't move into the same street. But then we thought, "Well, we're best mates, we socialise together, so what's the point of living at separate ends of town and spending a fortune on cab fares?" And that was it.

We knew that people would find this a very bizarre arrangement.' They now make a point of trying not to go on holiday together. 'It would be too much for some people,' Ant reasons. 'It would get them thinking that we couldn't bear to be apart.' · And and Dec release 'We're on the Ball' on 27 May. Their new Saturday-evening show starts next month on ITV1. Ant & Dec 25 Years: How we first became friends on Byker Grove - Chronicle Live Ant & Dec 25 Years: How we first became friends on Byker Grove Ant hated Dec's jokes, Dec thought Ant miserable. But soon the pair would be inseparable Share Get what's on updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email Video Loading Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8Cancel Play now Watch Next A love of Newcastle United and films first brought Ant and Dec together as friends. They had seen one other on the set of Byker Grove but paid little attention to each other. Ant laughs it was Dec’s jokes that initially put him off making friends with his fellow Newcastle west-ender. “They were awful. Awful. Awful. Awful,” he smiles.

But as their characters found themselves in more scenes together, so a friendship grew. “We’d never met before but the two characters became friends so ultimately we would be hanging around on set waiting for our scenes to be done or hanging out in the Green Room, or sitting next to each other when we were getting tutored,” recalls Dec. “We would mess about and put each other off. “I remember seeing Ant in the corner and thinking he’s got a bit of a miserable face,” he laughs. “It’s not like we walked into the room and went `you’re are hilarious, you are hilarious too’. But we quickly bonded over a love of Newcastle United and the latest releases at the Odeon.” Ant takes up the story: “We used to meet outside Eldon Square , at Grey’s Monument, get a little Greggs, walk up to St James’ Park and watch the football, win or lose. We were too young to go drinking so we would hang around the town and get our respective buses home. “I don’t remember Dec being there on the first day. I remember Spuggy and people like that. People say to me what did you think of him?

I didn’t think I didn’t remember him.” View gallery Dec adds: I’d been in the first series so there was a little group of us in the first year, but that was only six episodes, and in the second it was 20. We needed a load of new characters. Ant came in on that second wave of people.” Cue Ant: “Transformed the series really. That’s what he was about to say!” Back to Dec: “Upset the apple cart, I was going to say! We would pass each other in the corridor and say hello a bit, but didn’t really know each other. “Then our two characters became friends. I thought he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was when we first started out. I thought he was actually all right. I took him under my wing and ever since then....” The banter, as you can probably tell, is just the same off screen as on. “We then got to be in scenes together and honestly it was sat there talking about Newcastle United and the games and who our favourite players were and who we didn’t like – it’s the same chat as we have now to be honest, 25 years on – that’s how we bonded really,” says Ant.

Dec adds: “We finished filming the series and Ant sent me a Christmas card that year and it was Fred Flinstone on the front of it and inside it said `have a yabba-dabba-do Christmas’. (Ant: “It was a multi-pack! A lot of people got them.”) “It had `PS, fancy going to the Swindon game on Boxing Day?’. So I rang him up and said yes, so that was when we started going to the match and hanging out.” Ant & Dec 25 Years: Read more from the Geordie duo Ant and Dec 25 Years: We're looking forward to Takeaway on Tour in Newcastle They found fame on Byker Grove, but it wasn’t all plain sailing. School could be hard at times, as Ant explains: “It was tough. Especially at that age, you don’t get a lot of love from your peers. There is a lot of jealousy, especially from boys. They are not going to walk over and say `I thought you were fantastic last night darling, loved the show’. “What do you want to be in that for? A lot of name calling and mickey taking.

I suppose the good thing for us, which was good for us for the rest of our career, was it slowly happened, it didn’t just happen overnight. “You would be in one episode then you would be in the next episode a bit more and the next series your storyline would be getting bigger then the next series you may be the main storyline. So that recognition and fame was a slow-build, which I think was good for us, as otherwise I don’t think I could have handled it if it was as big as it is now. “That is tough to deal with, We had time to get our heads round it. It was still difficult at school when you have other kids being cruel and stuff and name calling. But then again we got a lot of nice attention from girls as well. “From early doors you could see the advantages and disadvantages of being famous.” Like us on Facebook Ant and Dec's 25 years in showbiz: How we bonded over Greggs and Newcastle United - Mirror Online Watch Next He says: “I loved drama at school and I was put forward by my drama teacher Lyn Spencer. If it wasn’t for her, pushing me and supporting me, I don’t think I would be here today. So thank you very much Lyn.

“I really enjoyed Why Don’t You, but I didn’t actually enjoy the aftermath of it, getting spotted in school, there was quite a lot of name calling and I found that kind of tough. “So when they came to audition for Byker Grove, I didn’t want to do it. I hid the letter from my mam and a mate of mine back then grassed me to my mam and she frog-marched me down to The Mitre and said 'do the audition and if you don’t want it after that don’t do it, but put yourself in the position as you will kick yourself for the rest of your life if you don’t turn up.’ “She was right. I did it, I got the part and I liked it. I’ve never really looked back. My friend Craig grassed me up and I am very thankful for that.” Video Loading Watch Next Dec’s showbiz debut came at the age of just five – Irish dancing at the club run by his mum and dad. The youngest of seven children, he grew up on a council estate with his Irish Catholic parents Anne and Alphonsus Donnelly. “They were the managers of the Tyneside Irish Centre.

I used to go there and take part in the Saturday morning Irish classes in the basement. There was nothing else to do. “I did a bit of that. I enjoyed performing, We would do little performances and when I got the round of applause I liked that. "I learned a few jokes so would tell a couple of jokes as well and do a bit of that and quite liked it when people would laugh at my jokes, even though they were rubbish.” “Nothing much has changed there,” chips in Ant. “I really enjoyed the performance side of things and I did a bit of drama club around where we lived but didn’t really think that is what I would go on and do.” Dec then auditioned for Geordie Racer, a programme children’s BBC were making for their Look and Read series. Ant and Dec in 1998 “The main character was a guy called Spuggy Hilton. I got down to the last two and I’m glad now I didn’t get it,” says Dec. “But at the time, it was the end of the world that I didn’t get it. He was a pigeon fancier and I have a phobia of pigeons.

Quite what I was doing I don’t know, it would either kill or cure me! “Then these auditions came round for Byker Grove and I wrote to the producers again and said I’d already auditioned and could I audition for you for this, and I got the part of Duncan, who was in three episodes of the first series. “Duncan was a bit of a glorified extra in the first series, I had about five lines I think.” Ant joined Byker Grove for the second series, but the pair, who are now so close close that they live on the same street in West London - Ant with wife Lisa and Dec with girlfriend Ali Astall - did not initially hit it off. In the early Byker Grove days Dec thought Ant was miserable and Ant laughs it was Dec’s jokes that initially put him off making friends, “They were awful. Awful. Awful. Awful,” he smiles. Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly in Byker Grove But as their characters PJ and Duncan found themselves in more scenes together, so a friendship grew.

“We’d never met before but the two characters became friends so ultimately we would be hanging around on set waiting for our scenes to be done or hanging out in the Green Room, or sitting next to each other when we were getting tutored,” recalls Dec. “We would mess about and put each other off. I remember seeing Ant in the corner and thinking he’s got a bit of a miserable face,” he laughs. “It’s not like we walked into the room and went 'you are hilarious', 'you are hilarious too’. "But we quickly bonded over a love of Newcastle United and the latest releases at the Odeon.” “I’d been in the first series so there was a little group of us in the first year, but that was only six episodes, and in the second it was 20. We needed a load of new characters. Ant came in on that second wave of people.” Ant laughs: “Transformed the series really. That’s what he was about to say!” “Upset the apple cart, I was going to say!” Dec retorts. “We would pass each other in the corridor and say hello a bit, but didn’t really know each other. “Then our two characters became friends.

I thought he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was when we first started out. I thought he was actually all right. I took him under my wing and ever since then....” Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly meet Cat Deeley The gentle ribbing that has won them an army of fans is just the same in person as when they are on TV. And as they prepare to take their hit TV show Saturday Night Takeaway on a nationwide arena tour for the very first time, the pair admit that they still chat about the same things now as they did as teenagers on Byker Grove. “Honestly it was sat there talking about Newcastle United and the games and who our favourite players were and who we didn’t like - it’s the same chat as we have now to be honest, 25 years on - that’s how we bonded really,” says Ant. Dec adds: “We finished filming the series and Ant sent me a Christmas card that year and it was Fred Flinstone on the front of it and inside it said 'have a yabba-dabba-do Christmas’. “It had `PS, fancy going to the Swindon game on Boxing Day?’.

So I rang him up and said yes, so that was when we started going to the match and hanging out.” Ant adds: “We used to meet in town, get a little Greggs, walk up to St James’ Park and watch the football, win or lose. "We were too young to go drinking so we would hang around the town and get our respective buses home.” Ant & Dec, with their Most Popular entertainment Presenter awards at the National Television Awards in 2002 As they found fame on Byker Grove, it wasn’t all plain sailing. School could be hard at times, as Ant explains: “It was tough. Especially at that age, you don’t get a lot of love from your peers. "There is a lot of jealousy, especially from boys. They are not going to walk over and say 'I thought you were fantastic last night darling, loved the show’. “What do you want to be in that for? A lot of name calling and mickey taking. I suppose the good thing for us, which was good for us for the rest of our career, was it slowly happened, it didn’t just happen overnight.

“You would be in one episode then you would be in the next episode a bit more and the next series your storyline would be getting bigger then the next series you may be the main storyline. "So that recognition and fame was a slow-build, which I think was good for us, as otherwise I don’t think I could have handled it if it was as big as it is now. “That is tough to deal with, We had time to get our heads round it. It was still difficult at school when you have other kids being cruel and stuff and name calling. But then again we got a lot of nice attention from girls as well. “From early doors you could see the advantages and disadvantages of being famous.” But the advantages have far outweighed the disadvantages as the pair are still going strong 25 years on. Ant & Dec Still together after 25 years (Photo: Ken McKay/ITV) The Newcastle Chronicle is running a series of articles this week on Ant and Dec's 25th anniversary in showbiz. Check their website for more . Ant and Dec's career so far 1989 – Dec joins Byker Grove playing Duncan. Ant joins the cast a year later as PJ.

1993 – Launch pop career as PJ and Duncan. Release three albums and 15 singles, with their highest chart position being No.3, until the re-released Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble hit No.1 last year. 1994 – Got their first TV presenting job on Gimme 5. 1995 – Offered own show on CBBC “The Ant and Dec Show”. 1996 – Won two BAFTA Awards for Best Childen’s Show and Best Comedy Sketch Show. 1998 – Switched to Channel 4 to present early evening kids’ show Ant and Dec Unzipped. 1998 – Signed by ITV to present SMTV Live and CD:UK with Cat Deeley. 1999 – Land first prime-time job with BBC’s Friends Like These. 2001 – Renewed ITV contract and present Pop Idol. Won first National Television Award for Most Popular Entertainment Presenter. They have now won it for 13 years running. 2002 – Create and present Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway as well as fronting I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

2006 – Create and host new game show PokerFace. 2007 – Host Britain’s Got Talent. 2008 – Filmed six episodes of US game show Wanna Bet? The show was cancelled after one series due to poor ratings. 2010 – Hosted new show Ant and Dec’s Push the Button. 2011 – Presented the most expensive game show in TV history – Red or Black – where contestants could win £1m every night. 2014 – Remain the nation’s favourite TV hosts fronting I’m A Celebrity, Britain’s Got Talent, and Saturday Night Takeaway. Like us on Facebook 'Wife and I want kids but it’s tough', says TV star Ant McPartlin | UK | News | Daily Express UK 'Wife and I want kids but it’s tough', says TV star Ant McPartlin ANTHONY McPartlin, one half of TV’s golden duo Ant and Dec, has revealed he and his wife are struggling to start a family.

00:07, Tue, Feb 19, 2013 Ant McPartlin has admitted he and his wife are struggling to start a family Childhood friends Ant, 37, and his wife Lisa, a 36-year-old make-up artist, married in 2006. He says they are finding it harder than they expected to have children in their late 30s. “There’s a rumour that we (me and Dec) do everything together and I’m holding off having kids till Dec finds himself Mrs Right,” said Ant. “I love that idea, but I’m afraid it’s not true. Lisa and I would love to have kids. We’re trying. It’s tougher than you think when you get a bit older.” Ant and his co-host Declan Donnelly, also 37, were interviewed individually for the Radio Times, out today. It's tougher than you think when you get a bit older Ant McPartlin The pair, who joined forces at the age of 14 on the BBC children’s TV series Byker Grove, are clearly very dear to each other. At one point Dec breaks down in tears as he recalls a teenage promise.

“We pledged then [as teens] whatever happens we’ll always remain friends. [He starts to cry.] I’m getting a bit emotional talking about it. I am more emotional than Ant.” He adds: “I appreciate our relationship even more since I lost my dad. We’ve both matured and realised there’s life outside work as we approach 40.” Unlike Ant, Dec is still waiting to marry. “People often ask why I haven’t settled down yet,” he says. “The last long-term relationship was a couple of years back with [Sky Sports presenter] Georgie Thompson. "But that’s not the last relationship I had. You just don’t hear about them, thankfully.” Ant has said he is looking forward to having children Ant reveals they have each taken out life insurance against the other dying. “It’s not for tens of millions but a fair chunk,” he says. “If he does ever die in unfortunate circumstances, I’m going to be the first person the police come to because I’ve got a motive. "Maybe when we’re 50 and not getting paid as we used to, I’ll knock him off.” The pair also reveal that the longest they have been apart since their teenage years is one month. They even live on the same road.

“Soon after Ant got married and moved into his home with Lisa, I found a plot of land I fancied developing on their road,” said Dec. “First of all I thought they’re going to build a family and I didn’t want to feel I was some sort of cling-on, some limpet. So I told Ant – he was like whoopee! But he said, ‘You’ve got to speak to Lisa’.” Related articles Biography - About - Ant & Dec Ant & Dec 1993 PJ & Duncan The fifth series of Byker Grove saw the characters PJ and Duncan form a band called Grove Matrix (snappy name!) and record a song called Tonight I'm Free. In a masterpiece of life imitating art, And and Dec received a call from Telstar Records to say that they wanted to release it as a single in real life - just as the boys were being told their characters were being written out of the show. Ant's 18th birthday saw the day the boys could legally sign their record deal with Telstar, as PJ and Duncan.

Their pop career was to span four years, three albums and 14 top 20 hits - most famously the BRIT Award-nominated Let's Get Ready To Rhumble. For the first two albums, they continued to record as TV show alter-egos PJ and Duncan, before opting to go by their own names for album number three, The Cult of Ant And Dec. 1989 Byker Grove Having already been introduced to the showbiz world as a presenter on kids' TV show Why Don't You..?, Ant landed the role of PJ the DJ in children's drama, Byker Grove. Dec had already served a year on the show playing sensible, level-headed Duncan, when Ant arrived on set. The pair bonded over their mutual love of Newcastle United and the friendship was sealed on Boxing Day 1990, when they had their first outing outside of work - heading to St James' Park to watch their beloved Newcastle draw 1-1 with Swindon Town. 1994 Gimme 5 The boys' first foray into TV presenting came on the CiTV Saturday morning show Gimme 5, where they discovered the fun that could be had getting gunged live on air!

1995 The Ant & Dec Show And and Dec began flexing their comedy muscles in CBBC sketch show, The Ant & Dec Show. There was a whiff of controversy about the show, thanks to a slot called Beat The Barber where losers in a quiz had their heads shaved. Lighten up moaners, it was funny! 1996 First BAFTA Award! The boys picked up their first two major awards this year: BAFTA for Best Children's Show and Best Sketch Comedy Show. A sign of things to come. 1998 Ant & Dec Unzipped A move to Channel 4 and a later time slot as the boys launched their early evening show Ant & Dec Unzipped (which earned them another BAFTA), but they were soon snapped up by ITV in the same year. SM:TV Live The lads were soon back in our living rooms on a Saturday morning, this time as presenters of SM:TV Live and CD:UK, alongside Cat Deeley. Over the next three years, it became the most popular kids' TV show in ITV's history and introduced the phrase Wonkey Donkey to the English language. Hurrah!

2000 Friends Like These A first taste of Saturday night prime time TV came in the shape of Friends Like These, a game show which pitted a group of female friends against a team of males in a series of challenges. A sort of Krypton-Factor-meets-The-Cube with added battle of the sexes thrown in... 2001 Slap Bang with Ant & Dec A grown up version of SM:TV Live, this Saturday evening hour of fun updated some of the favourite slots from the Saturday morning version, including Challenge Ant and 'Beers', a new version of Chums. 2002 Saturday Night Takeaway History was about to be made! The first ever episode of Saturday Night Takeaway airs on ITV to huge acclaim, changing the face of primetime weekend telly viewing forever. And just think... flash forward 12 years and you can watch it live in a bloomin' massive arena! I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! For many celebrities, live would never be the same again after this instant ITV hit, I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

Ant and Dec watched on with barely-concealed glee as random celebs dealt with witchety grubs, spiders, hunger pains and very public washing facilities. No wonder it's still going strong... A Tribute to The Likely Lads Going back to their North-East acting roots and in tribute to a TV classic, Ant played Terry Collier and Dec played Bob Ferris in a loveable reworking of the 1970s sitcom Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? 2003 Love Actually The lads enjoyed a cameo in the British movie hit Love Actually, playing themselves as 'Ant Or Dec', giving them a taste for the film-making game... 2005 Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon Just as Likely Lads was a nod to a classiv TC sitcom, their next hit venture for ITV revived some of the most-loved game shows of the last thirty years. The Price Is Right, Bullseye and Sale of the Century were among the seven quiz shows given a modern day remix. 2006 Poker Face Ant and Dec launched a fresh and bold new quiz show on ITV, which gave contestants the chance to bluff their way to £1 million - one contestant was lucky enough to scoop the jackpot.

That year the boys also took on hosting duties for the celebrity charity match Soccer Aid. Having made it in the world of TV and music (well, sort of...), the natural next step for Ant & Dec was to make a movie, and Alien Autopsy, based on a true story, was the perfect format. It told the tale of two British guys who attempt to fool the world with a video of, yes, a supposed alien autopsy. 2007 The next all-conquering format landed on British screens, uniting Ant and Dec with Simon Cowell for the first time. The show went on to produce the careers of Susan Boyle, Paul Potts, Diversity and Stavros Flatley. Wanna Bet? Opportunity knocked across the Atlantic as Ant and Dec marked a new milestone by fronting a game show for US TV called Wanna Bet? The lads celebrated their new venture in the States by flying to Las Vegas, contracting food poisoning and spending 48 hours in their hotel bathrooms throwing up. Congratulations! 2010 Ant & Dec's Push The Button Another new venture for the boys, where once more they generously tried to give members of the general public a massive load of cash.

In this show, which ran for two series, families faced off to bank £100,000. 2011 Red Or Black? The next joint venture with BGT chum Simon Cowell. This epic show saw contestants take part in various chellenges before earning the chance to answer one simple but hugely important question... red or black? Incredibly, four winning contestants in the first series went home as instant millionaires after guessing correctly. 2013 Prince Charles and Ant & Dec became the unlikeliest of friends | Daily Mail Online comments It’s the most intimate Royal documentary EVER. Now Ant and Dec reveal how they hung out with the heir to the throne for an entire year, how Charles opened up about his ‘darling’ Camilla, invited their wives over for a wild weekend with Rod Stewart, and introduced them to William and Harry – with hilarious results... Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly spent 12 months hanging out with Prince Charles for the remarkable fly-on-the-wall TV documentary, When Ant And Dec Met The Prince: 40 Years Of The Prince’s Trust Here’s a Royal conundrum.

Who would you pick to spend a year shadowing the heir to the throne with a film crew, with unprecedented access to his closest family and friends? While the 67-year-old Prince Charles could, when offered this very choice, have anointed any number of heavyweight broadcasters (Andrew Marr, Jonathan or David Dimbleby or even Jeremy Paxman), the future king instead demonstrated his common (and perhaps revealingly mischievous) touch by giving Royal assent to the working-class kings of light entertainment – irrepressible Geordie presenters Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, better known as Ant and Dec. Hanging out for 12 months with McPartlin and Donnelly for the remarkable fly-on-the-wall TV documentary, When Ant And Dec Met The Prince: 40 Years Of The Prince’s Trust, Charles proves that, contrary to what his critics may say, he is neither stuffy nor remote.

He swaps wisecracks with the pair as they tail him on Royal appointments across the country, from Parc Prison in Bridgend to M&S at Marble Arch in London (at one point he greets the famously diminutive duo, Ant – 5ft 8in, Dec – 5ft 6in, with the unforgettable words: ‘You’ve grown since we last saw you’). He invites them into his stately homes at Kensington, Clarence House and Dumfries (where they have a caper-filled ‘sleepover’ with their wives and Rod Stewart, more of which later). And he even grants them audiences with his sons, Prince Harry and William, and his wife, Camilla. ‘Even when we said yes, we had no idea how it would all turn out, that we’d be with him on and off for a year and how unbelievable it would be,' said Dec By the time the adventure ends in early summer with a visit to Dumfries House, his Scottish residence, the pint-sized pranksters and the Prince have established an unlikely and apparently enduring friendship. The result is one of the most intimate, affectionate, emotional and engaging portraits of our heir to the throne ever broadcast.

In the Australian outback in the midst of recording I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, McPartlin and Donnelly are momentarily lost for words as they tell Event exclusively how the ‘most surreal, most incredible’ assignment of their 27-year career came about. ‘It was this time last year,’ explains Donnelly. ‘We were here filming I’m A Celebrity and we got an email saying they wanted to celebrate 40 years of The Prince’s Trust, would we want to be involved? You don’t even need to think about that one, the answer was an immediate yes. ‘Initially we just thought it would work because we’re ambassadors for the Prince’s Trust and we turned 40 the same year [they both celebrated their 40th birthday in 2015]. ‘And we interviewed Prince Charles with Prince William and Prince Harry before for the 30th celebration of the Trust,’ McPartlin pitches in. ‘But we never presumed anything would happen again.’ He pauses.

‘Even when we said yes, we had no idea how it would all turn out, that we’d be with him on and off for a year and how unbelievable it would be.’ Harry and William affectionately moan to Ant and Dec about their father’s habit of ‘rabbiting on’ all the time (pictured at Kensington Palace) Indeed, there are some truly astonishing moments of Royal history revealed in the documentary. For the first time cameras are allowed into Clarence House, home to Charles’s private cinema, where the presenters are shown home films from the Royal Family film archives. There’s footage of a baby Charles playing peekaboo with the Queen, and being tickled and cuddled by her, sometime in the years before her coronation. In arguably the most enjoyable part of the film, the pair and their wives are invited for a jolly long weekend at Dumfries House, where fellow guests at a Prince’s Trust banquet include Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster. ‘We dropped in to see our families on the way up,’ recalls Donnelly. ‘They didn’t believe we were staying with Prince Charles and that we were just two doors down from his bedroom.

In fact, they still don’t believe us.’ Before the banquet, cameras capture a hilarious incident when Donnelly, clad in black tie, leans out of his window to remark to the passing Rod Stewart on his eye-popping ‘lizard-skin black tie get up.’ Cut to a disgruntled-looking McPartlin whinging that his friend has bagged the better room in the household. Later in the evening, as the festivities get rowdier, we see Charles leading a lusty sing-a-long of The Bonnie Lass Of Fyvie, watched by a smiling Stewart and guests. Eventually, the pair and their wives ascend the stairs to bed. But not before a cheeky request for room service. The three visit HMP Parc, where they met young people taking part in The Prince’s Trust’s Get Started With Football scheme McPartlin laughs as he explains: ‘I still can’t quite believe we got Prince Charles’s butler to get us some more wine after the party was over. 'He brought two bottles up to our rooms and we carried on drinking with our wives.’ McPartlin and Donnelly’s demeanour in the programme is somewhere between their trademark hilarity and quiet deference.

But even before the cameras started rolling, an obvious hurdle presented itself: would the boys from Tyneside understand the cut-class tones of the Gordonstoun-educated Prince? And what on earth would Charles make of those Tarmac-thick Geordie dialects? McPartlin – whose accent is a few grades grittier than his partner’s – laughs. ‘Actually we had no issues with his accent, but I think he may have had a few with mine. I would ask him a question and sometimes he would just smile. 'Then Dec would ask the same question and get a full answer!’ There were other sensitive issues: ‘Protocol-wise, we did occasionally forget stuff,’ says McPartlin. ‘I found myself getting a bit over-familiar and grabbing His Royal Highness and slapping him on the back a bit – I had to keep stopping myself.’ ‘There was a lot of etiquette [for example, remembering forms of address and knowing that Camilla could ‘chat’ but not be officially interviewed on camera] – we just had to keep reminding each other,’ adds Donnelly. 'But we were as nervous and as unfamiliar as anyone else would be. He was the one to make us feel comfortable.

He’s a master at putting you at your ease.’ At M&S in Marble Arch, London, where they visited young people on a Make Your Mark course. ‘We were genuinely surprised at how much the Prince’s Trust means to him on a very personal level,’ said Dec Ant and Dec’s natural affinity with the kind of young people the Prince’s Trust was set up to support (and who appear alongside the trio throughout the documentary) undoubtedly helps establish the film’s authenticity. At 13, McPartlin and Donnelly were two working-class lads whose lives were changed by an unexpected opportunity – in their case the chance to star in a children’s television show, Byker Grove, set in their home town of Newcastle. It proved to be the start of a lifelong friendship and the springboard to a glittering career. ‘We are just like a lot of these kids who get an opportunity through the Prince’s Trust,’ says McPartlin, who grew up poor on a notoriously tough council estate in Fenham and who was forced to take on the role of man of the house aged just ten after his father left his mother and younger sister, Sarah. ‘We had a chance and everything we have now is based on that one chance in life.

'The day we went back to Byker Grove [to the set in Benwell, Newcastle] was very emotional. I wanted to cry because it just all hit home. 'I remember I was going to skip the audition for it, but a friend grassed me up to my mam and she made me go. 'One man, Matthew Robinson, made a decision to give me the part of PJ. I met Dec, everything happened after and I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for that.’ He pauses: ‘I didn’t grow up with money and The Prince’s Trust did mean something to me because I remember a boy in my school wanted to be a pipe fitter. Prince Charles with Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, a Prince’s Trust ambassador, has set up her own North East-based charity to help disadvantaged youngsters 'He couldn’t get an apprenticeship without tools and he couldn’t afford the tools until he wrote to The Prince’s Trust. 'He’s now in London, he’s got a great job and I’ve seen how his life changed.

'All people need is one chance.’ In the documentary Ant and Dec return to Newcastle along with Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, another Prince’s Trust ambassador, who has set up her own North East-based charity to help disadvantaged youngsters. The three reflect on the breaks they were given. Fernandez-Versini reveals: ‘If I hadn’t had this and the discipline it brought me I could have been a drug addict or ended up in prison.’ And McPartlin adds: ‘Same as me. Lord knows what would have happened.’ He then jokes to Donnelly, the youngest of seven children of an Irish Catholic family: ‘But you would have become the best mobile-phone salesman in the North East.’ There is no doubt McPartlin and Donnelly can relate to the youngsters we see in the film struggling to get a break through the Prince’s Trust, but more revealingly we see that – despite his Royal birth – Charles also displays an innate ease with them. ‘We were genuinely surprised at how much the Prince’s Trust means to him on a very personal level,’ says Donnelly. ‘We saw him with people he’d met through the Trust. He just talks to them and makes them feel relaxed.

He knows all their stories, he remembers all these little details. 'For us as ambassadors it was fascinating to know how he’d come up with the idea in the first place. It came about after he’d served as captain of HMS Bronington [in 1976], where he was in charge of a crew from all walks of life. 'We went back and spoke to some of his old shipmates. They were all very fond of him. 'They told us about him joining in with beard-growing competitions and inviting him to a pub for a birthday and not expecting him to turn up, but he always did.’ Prince Charles at Dumfries House, his Scottish residence It is also in this section of the film that Charles tells them that his seasickness was sometimes so appalling during his time at sea that ‘all you want to do is find someone to shoot you’. As well as trips to meet young people benefitting from Prince’s Trust schemes across the country, McPartlin and Donnelly are invited to talk openly and at length to the three people closest to the Prince: his sons, William and Harry, and his wife, Camilla. We see a relaxed and happy Charles talking about his ‘darling wife’.

He admits with the merest hint of a blushed cheek that he hasn’t yet changed his grandchildren’s nappies, but adds that he is thankful that he will have them ‘to look after me when I’m tottering about’. ‘He was lovely about Camilla and the two boys,’ recalls McPartin, ‘and being a granddad. It was fascinating just to hear him talk like that.’ ‘What got me was how I could actually relate to him when he talked about his family, which seems crackers given how totally different we are. 'But he talked about sitting with his granddad, King George, and remembering how he could feel the sofa because he was always wearing short trousers.’ Later, during a social visit at Kensington Palace to talk to his sons, Harry and William affectionately moan to McPartlin and Donnelly about their father’s habit of ‘rabbiting on’ all the time.

And while they talk of their love and respect for their ‘incredibly hard-working’ dad, the Princes reveal how he used to embarrass them, laughing in all the wrong places at their school plays and sending them hand-written notes so indecipherable that they would have to pass them between each other to work out if they were being praised or told off. ‘He was lovely about Camilla and the two boys and being a granddad. It was fascinating just to hear him talk like that,’ said Ant The show’s director is the Bafta-winning producer Michael Waldman, who also made the documentary Our Queen to mark the Diamond Jubilee. He says that Charles’s choice of the working-class TV heroes proved a masterstroke. ‘The combination is quite magical. Ant and Dec are from a world of light entertainment – there is no journalistic background. 'This is the first time they have ever done a documentary. But what they were able to do was draw from Charles, Camilla and the princes a sense of humanity, a sense of fun, a lot of emotion and a sense of them being – although Royal – a proper family.

'Ant and Dec were totally out of their normal comfort zone but brilliantly adapted to a very different way of working.’ In the television industry there is no one to match them. They have a reputation for hard graft, a forensic eye for detail and a wry view of the celebrity world. Despite their massive success, their countless awards, the £62 million they have jointly earned, the two stars have successfully managed to keep a low profile, rarely discussing their personal lives. Donnelly admits that Waldman had to persuade them to show more of their own relationship in this documentary, including those with their wives (he recently married talent manager, Ali Astall, this year and McPartlin has been married to make-up artist Lisa Armstrong since 2006). ‘There is a lot of stuff we absolutely wouldn’t normally do,’ admits McPartlin. I ask if Charles or other members of the Royal Family watch their shows. They both shrug their shoulders.

Ant has been married to make-up artist Lisa Armstrong since 2006 and Dec recently married talent manager, Ali Astall, this year ‘We sort of know they do because they make comments, like Charles told us to put clog dancers on our show [Saturday Night Takeaway] and raised a few questions about the jungle, but we didn’t directly ask them,’ says Donnelly. ‘Our style is quite cheeky but you have to have respect and we did,’ he adds. McPartlin muses: ‘I did keep jumping in whenever Charles was being offered food. 'He always turns it down because he is handed food wherever he goes. I found myself constantly taking it instead of him. 'I’m guessing I can always get a job as a royal food taster if everything goes wrong in this job.’ But the real pull of the documentary is the rapport between these three men born worlds apart and living entirely different lives. After spending weeks in each other’s company, rubbing shoulders with the closest members of their families, it’s clear the trio have built up a genuine chemistry and an unexpected friendship has blossomed.

On their 40th birthday Charles sent them a ‘lovely little hip flask with beaker tops if we fancy a wee dram on the golf course,’ confides McPartlin. When Donnelly got married, Charles sent him his watercolour portraits made up into place mats. ‘I’m surprised to find myself saying these words but I think he actually became quite fond of us,’ says Donnelly. As McPartlin puts it succinctly: ‘I’m going to miss him.’ Maybe he’ll be seeing them again soon, this time with ceremonial sword in hand. Sir Ant and Sir Dec has a rather nice ring to it.

‘When Ant And Dec Met The Prince: 40 Years Of The Prince’s Trust’ is shown on January 4 on ITV at 9pm Ant & Dec 25 Years: Moving to children's TV presenting, the Geordie duo cause some controversy - Chronicle Live Ant & Dec 25 Years: Moving to children's TV presenting, the Geordie duo cause some controversy Geordie duo Ant and Dec talk about their first presenting show and leaving PJ and Duncan behind Share An episode of the Ant & Dec show filmed at the BBC in 1995 (Photo: Mirrorpix) Share Get what's on updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email Acting on children’s TV is one thing – presenting your own show is another. Just as `PJ and Duncan’ were enjoying a string of hits in the pop charts, Ant and Dec were approached by the BBC and asked if they would do a children’s TV show. “We honestly felt a bit more at home in the TV studio than we did in the recording studio. We had one big album and we started working on the Ant and Dec Show and we had a really good time,” Dec tells me.

“We started to make the second album about the same time. As with many pop acts, your shelf life isn’t that great, we peaked with our first album. “The second album wasn’t as good and the TV stuff we were enjoying a lot more. That is where we saw our future genuinely. “We were in Japan and Germany and they were asking what does PJ and Duncan mean and we were going `there’s this kids show in Newcastle called Byker Grove’. It was very hard to explain, as they would say your names are Ant and Dec. “Plus we wanted a career in television so we needed to become ourselves. We weren’t in the show anymore and we needed to shake off that PJ and Duncan tag. So we became simply Ant and Dec.” View gallery The Ant and Dec show was a ratings winner. “We had a lot of input in the show. We worked with the writers on the show and they came up with most of the ideas but all our influences and stuff we wanted to do were in there. We sat down and talked about who we liked comedy-wise, TV-wise, what made us laugh and what we enjoyed doing.

So a lot of our tastes went into The Ant and Dec show.” Ant adds: “It was what we knew as well. We weren’t songwriters but we grew up on television. We had been on Byker Grove since the age of 13 so we felt it was in our blood.” Dec reveals that was when they first met David Walliams, whom they would later work with on Britain’s Got Talent. “He was a writer on the show. He was a bit crazy and we always liked him as he was a bit rude and edgy and out there. We worked with him on the series and all his ideas were a bit mad.” Ant chips in: “They would always end up with him being in the sketch as well. A security guard comes on and drags them off, so who would play the security guard, and he would say `well I think I will do that, I don’t mind dressing up’. He played a vicar, a security guard. He was dying to be and destined to be on camera.” Ant & Dec 25 Years: Read more from the Geordie duo:

Question: On which children's television show did Ant and Dec first meet?
Answer: BYKER GROVE