It’s lovely to live in a
place where you can’t
imagine leaving.
so I was absolutely chuffed - that was
my driving force just to prove I can do
something.
What’s your signature dish?
Well I do all the basic English casseroles,
shepherds’ pie and all that stuff but when
you do MasterChef you have to learn
French cooking and all about sauces. I
did do one dish on Celebrity MasterChef
which Jay Rayner complimented on
which was seabass with a lovely sauce
– it was a crumbled seabass and I did
wonder at the time how I was going to
pull it off but I did and his compliments
were the best thing that anyone’s ever
said to me – it was better than my acting!
And as I got through each stage I used
to get on the train I used to say to Jackie,
I’ve got through again and I got through
five of those stages - I couldn’t believe it,
it was so exciting - it was tough but I had
great people around me including Ade
Edmondson and Janet Street Porter who
was an absolute powerhouse!
operate. What it means is that basically
you have a camera following you all
the time asking you the same bloody
questions day in day out - you can hardly
walk down the stairs and you want to
say ‘I tell you what I feel like shoving that
camera up your arse’so I don’t think my
heart was in it but I tried my absolute best
and I was heartily disappointed because
it was the only time they’ve ever done
the dance-off in the first show - they’ve
hadn’t done that before and it wasn’t in
our contract. They pulled that on us a
few days beforehand. The actual dance
wasn’t that bad but I lost about 12 steps
in the middle of it. Craig Revel Horwood
could see a bit of potential but Kenny
Logan - he was a dreadful, dreadful
dancer - he couldn’t dance at all though
he beat me over it so he stayed in and
I went out- partly I think because Gaby
Logan was there as well - but that’s
another thing!
Nobody actually tells you who votes for
who and how many they go but also I had
this terrible flu I mean the sort of flu when
you want to go and die and I could barely
get up. I don’t know how I got through the
dance. Actually it was very disappointing,
all my family were there so it was a very
exciting thing to be part of and I never
thought anybody would even bother to
ask me so I felt very touched but my heart
wasn’t in it enough. I didn’t realise how
serious it was. I did try my best and I was
very upset coming out so early I mean
that was almost quite humiliating really
and the only good thing about that was
that I’d been a little bit of a golden boy up
to that point everything I touched turned
to gold - I was winning awards and it gave
me a bit of a kick up the bum and also
it was good for my family to see me fail
miserably at something so actually I think
it did me good!
It did lead you to other reality shows.
My wife Jackie, she loves MasterChef
and when I was asked to do Celebrity
MasterChef a couple of years ago, I
initially I turned it down. Then they came
back as it was straight after doing a very
heavy show and I thought I can’t do it.
Anyway they asked me again and I said
‘let’s do it, let’s go for it’ so we did and
my wife wanted me to do that to get a
bit of honour back in the reality television
stakes! I was hoping just to get through
the first heat but I got through to the finals
I remember it started to turn for me in
Celebrity MasterChef when Greg said
‘I’m beginning to view Brian through
completely new spectacles’
That’s a good line! So what other
fortune has Richard Hillman brought
you?
One of the best things I had from it was
the experience of a lifetime, I did a bit of
presenting on This Morning and they said
to me ‘how do you fancy going to Borneo
to do some documentaries for us on
orangutans?’ I said, ‘oh yeah that would
be fantastic’ so I went and did about eight
or nine reports for This Morning and I was
out there for two weeks. I flew out there
with the producer and camera team and
I went into the jungle tracking them, I
stayed the night in a village, I did so many
exciting things and I’ve got it all on DVD. I
show my grandchildren - it was the most
exciting time and someone was paying
me to do it and it was nothing to do with
acting just something that someone had
asked me to do.
It was just phenomenal absolutely I can’t
tell you… it was just so exciting and it
was such a great little team and they used
to bring me down to earth. One night I
had to stay with a Muslim family in the
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