Chris Tarrant . . . gone fishing

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Tiswas was a phenomenon, and it was with that vehicle for his anarchic sense of humour that Chris became a household name, and a cult TV hero to children and adults alike. “It came out of nowhere, and for me it was like manna from heaven. It took off and just went through the roof, becoming this huge cult programme. I suppose it was like being one of the Goodies, or the Python team, or the Not the Nine o’ Clock News lot, or whatever. It was great; we just came to know each other so well. I mean, Sally James is godmother to my kids and I’m godfather to one of hers. I see Lenny Henry quite a lot. John Gorman still lives around. Bob Carolgees is on the phone quite often. He’s another fishing nut!

“So we just went through this weird experience together, it was a bit like being in a band, we kind of grew together and saw all this huge public recognition. Yes, it was like being in a band - we were all young and pretty, and girls were swooning all over us. Seriously, God, it was hell!

“We used to do the road shows. The tours were like rock concerts and we sold out everywhere. It was fantastic. As soon as we finished a series about April, we would go straight on the road for about 30 nights, and that was brilliant. They were great days, and when I actually left, well, I just smelt of custard, my whole body smelt of custard, my car smelt of custard!”

Why did Chris leave Tiswas? After all, it really was an astonishing success.
“I never got fed up with it, I just felt it was time to move on. I wanted to get away from that children’s presenter thing because once you get stuck with that it is hard to shift it. Ant and Dec have managed it, Philip Schofield’s done it now - but it took him a long time. A lot of people sink without a trace. So we wanted to move on while we still could. I’m still very fond of Tiswas, and I have great memories of it.”

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