Wax this: David Gest arriving at a party at Madam Tussauds in January.
From national joke to national treasure in six months: if ITV has anything to do with it, that's what's planned for David Gest. Not since Charlotte Church has so much airtime been thrown behind a single person in the hope of lighting their celebrity touch paper. Liza Minnelli's ex-husband is shortly to show up in his own reality show This is David Gest - you may have seen the annoying faux-Cockney trailers.
The trouble with fireworks is that they're just as likely to fizzle out - or blow up in your face - as launch into the stratosphere. When Living TV jumped on the Jade Goody bandwagon, they can't have expected more than two series out of the gobby idiot before someone shot her career in the foot. In fact, she lasted four years before self-immolating in January - and may well rise again if Channel 4's rumoured new reality show is anything to go by.
But back to Gest, who's still in that blissful honeymoon period after surprising us by not being completely insane on I'm a Celebrity. Clearly robbed of victory by the British public (the tele-vote is now in question) it was always clear who would have the TV career - and it wasn't eventual winner Matt Willis. Since Celebrity finished, Gest has spent most of his time in England, showing up on Soapstar Superstar and schmoozing Simon Cowell enough to land a judging spot on Grease is the Word, which started last Saturday on ITV.
(Speaking of which, was there ever such a magnet for non-entity nepotism? People who sniggered at Sinitta's credentials for being a voice coach on the X-Factor must be spewing cornflakes to discover Simon Cowell's ex-girlfriend is now an arbiter of great acting and dancing too. Who'd have thought her ancient hit So Macho had been that influential? And as for the conveyor belt that cranked out Nasty Nigel, Jason Gardiner, Craig Revel Horwood and Richard Park, we have a new identikit villain in David Ian.)
ITV isn't saying what This is David Gest, which launches in May, will reveal about the man. Will it be the new Osbournes or a Louis Theroux subject stretched out over a series? (Surely a chat show called Be My Gest is a better idea.) It's still difficult to understand exactly what Gest brings to TV apart from connections with the weirder end of the celebrity market (Liza, Michael Jackson), a crude turn of phrase ("she has her head up her vagina", his I'm A Celeb verdict on Jan Leeming, or "that guy needs an enema", about David Ian), bizarre looks and an incongruously dry wit and amiable disposition.
That said, careers have been built on much less. How infuriating for Liza Minnelli - who garnered a lot of public sympathy from the mistaken belief that she'd married a gay fruitcake - to find her ex-husband so celebrated. She spent half her life as an all-round entertainer - all Gest had to do was scratch his backside in the jungle for a bit. Yet mainstream fame seems to be a fait accompli - whether we like it or not.
