Why Nigel Farage failed on ‘I’m a Celebrity…’

The coronation of Sam Thompson, Scrappy Doo in human form, as King of the Jungle in this year’s I’m A Celebrity… was an inevitability. It was unthinkable that Tony Bellew – his still, stoic Scouse sparring partner – would not come second. And that Nigel Farage wouldn’t trail in third.

When Farage made it through the public votes, all the way up to the final, there was much amused speculation about him coming out on top. The ‘banter’ outcome would’ve seen Farage take the crown, just for the sheer devilment of it.

Yes, that would’ve been delicious, the ultimate wind-up of Farage’s many detractors. It was a pleasant daydream to imagine the horrified tweets declaring that the former Brexit party leader’s win was confirmation that the public are all swivel-eyed fascists and that ITV had blood on their hands for normalising a dangerous extremist. There would have been some corkers of the genre, no doubt. ‘The level of tantrums on here today persuaded me to vote even though I haven’t watched any of it,’ I saw someone say on X on Sunday. 

But Sam had this wrapped up. His friendship with Tony was delightful to watch; the hyperactive, naughty ‘child’ type and solid, centred ‘dad’ type that’s been the base template of comedy double acts for centuries. Sam’s irrepressible bounce is a delight because it reminds us of the far-off days when we too – yes, even us – bounced.

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And there’s the key point, and the reason why Farage could never have won: we watch shows like I’m A Celebrity… to escape, to put the shouting and wrangling and angst of the rest of television with its lectures and chiding and goading, behind us. It is a bubble of fun that takes place as far away as it is possible to get.

This is the second year in a row that a contentious politician has taken part, which may partly explain the ratings drop of this series. The presence of Matt Hancock last year and Farage in 2023 were constant unwelcome reminders of real life, with all its angst and aggravation. The intrusion of politics into such a bagatelle is like putting Marmite in a trifle.

Ant and Dec themselves have let slip that they’d like a break from politicians in the jungle. I have an alternative: a one-off, all-politician version. The forthcoming mass annihilation of Tory MPs should provide a bumper crop of contestants. Imagine Lee Anderson and Caroline Nokes forced to share a toilet.

What of Farage? From his point of view, was it worth it? It was certainly fascinating to watch him in this very unfamiliar social setting. People with his very ordinary, widely held and pretty innocuous opinions are never seen on TV, except as villains or fools. It was disorientating to see a tiny bit of what boring people call ‘representation’ in the blanded-out, deracinated world of TV, where even the deepest outback is London and everyone has the same bank of stock reactions and phrases: ‘you’ve got this babes’, ‘at the end of the day’ ‘it is what it is’ ‘I’ve got your back’. 

It’s a horrendous cliché, but Farage has the confidence of the public school boy. He has the fortitude, reserve and physical stillness of the generation two before ours, forged in harder times. He has that lost British quality – that I can just about remember, and which was blasted away forever by the death of Diana – of assuming goodwill without ever having to demonstrate it, let alone display it constantly with tactile contact and calling everyone ‘babes’ and ‘hun’.

Farage can keep things in, which nowadays is extremely rare. It was interesting to compare his unflinching demeanour in the trials with that of Bellew, who is similarly weighted, but who let his emotions burst out.

But as for turning round doubters? Farage was affable, certainly, but also rather dull. He is neither loveable nor funny in social situations. Even Matt Hancock knew he had to try and seem schmaltzy. Making people go ‘aaah’ is totally beyond Farage. Which is fine. He was, however, sunk from the moment he whispered to Grace Dent, very early on, that he wanted to do the trials because it meant getting 25 per cent of the air time. Now, this is the kind of thought that many a contestant will be thinking – but saying it out loud in front of cameras was a disastrous blunder. It put me in mind of the time a few series back when a popular boy band member said something along the lines of ‘Oh I had a really bad year last year, I only made half a million pounds so thats why I’m doing this’ and was voted out in short order. We like our contestants ingenuous, or at least making a good fist of pretending to be.

So, in his stated aim of winning over doubters and haters, and appealing to a ‘young audience’, will Farage’s stint in the jungle have made the slightest difference? No.