The Gillian McKeith who left I'm A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! on Monday is markedly different from the Gillian McKeith who entered. Previously, she was primarily known as the woman who enjoyed sifting through Tupperware containers full of obese people's poo with a Biro, and who thought that doing so somehow demonstrated that she was an expert nutritionist.
But the new, post-jungle McKeith? She's a different proposition altogether. Over the last few weeks, she's transformed into a screaming, whining, fainting harpy who, if anything, seems to have expertise only in making Shaun Ryder fume while pretending to be frightened of the overwhelming majority of all things that exist.
But that's not to say that a fortnight of being the most irritating woman on the planet has ruined McKeith's television prospects. In fact, there's a very good chance that production companies up and down the country are racing to churn out new formats to maximise on her new-found notoriety. But just what formats do they have in mind?
A quick ring round brought the following responses.
A spokesman for Cactus TV acknowledged that McKeith was probably hot property, but could only issue a terse "She's not on our development slate at the moment" when pushed. Neil Webster, creative director at Zeppotron, said that he could shape a TV show around her, so long as there was a gun to his head and with "the caveat that McKeith was not allowed anywhere near any of my excretions after the event".
Cameron Banks from TwoFour — the company behind Sky's Noel's Christmas Presents — sees Gillian as a hate figure akin to Nikki from Big Brother who the public would love to torment. His pitch involved curing McKeith of her spider phobia with hypnotism, but not before she'd been plunged into a tank of spiders for an unnecessarily long time.
Best not to dwell on the idea from Mark Lucey, series producer of BBC One's Walk On The Wild Side, which involved poos, the public and a big tombola ("like a dirty You Bet") before moving swiftly on to the best pitches, which came from Matt, a freelance producer who bizarrely wishes to remain anonymous for the sake of his career. They ranged from Thrills 'n' Gills 'n' Tellyaches, where McKeith and Ryder reprise their famously argumentative chemistry for a Harry Hill-style TV review show; to Gillian's Gillingham, a Michael Palin-esque travelogue series devoted solely to Gillingham and the Medway towns.
Channel commissioners, what on earth are you waiting for?
