[Amy]

Interview with Big Brother’s Little Brother presenter DERMOT O’LEARY

Presenters of ‘yoof’ TV are much like Ibiza holiday reps: They’re young, energetic, fun, and lively, have better tans than everyone else, and possess the intellect of a grapefruit. For the presenters, the ability to wear designer clothes, smile, and read an autocue of monosyllabic words is their ticket to stardom, the best tables in the hottest clubs, and a celebrity partner with whom to produce beautiful, chisel-jawed, vacuous yoof-TV presenter children.

So Dermot O’Leary comes as no surprise. He positively brims with good-natured energy and youthful vitality, he looks fit (in every sense of the word) and has no wonky teeth. He looks casually trendy in a black shirt, jeans and trainers. In short (well, he’s not exactly tall) he’s just what you’d expect.

Except that’s not quite the whole story.

His favourite magazine is Prospect, a brilliant but brain-achingly sophisticated monthly collection of weighty political essays and cultural debate. He is a dedicated campaigner for Make Poverty History, and studied Media and Politics at Middlesex University. He has a passion for newspapers and books, and talks with the same easygoing eloquence about third world debt as he does when discussing former Big Brother contestants. In a bizarre twist on the clichéd image of a person on the tube reading Heat tucked inside a copy of Prospect, with O’Leary, it’s more likely to be the other way around. For heaven’s sake, he discussed debt relief with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Bill Clinton yesterday. Today, it’s conversation with me. Talk about an exciting couple of days!

Bless him, though. If doing the squillionth interview of his career (ahead of the return of Big Brother on Channel 4 this May) in a pokey make-up room during a photo shoot break is less interesting than correcting global injustice with world leaders in front of a TV audience of millions, you’d never know it. He’s charm itself – attentive, warm, and chatty – and manages to convey the impression that nobody has ever asked him anything quite as interesting as ‘who have been your favourite Big Brother contestants?’

And what of Prospect? Does he really read it, or just put it on the coffee table for people to see? “I absolutely love it, I really do. The more politics they do, the better. I don’t tend to read the fiction they do in it sometimes. One of my favourite issues was a whole magazine dedicated to the UN. It was brilliant. I took it on holiday, and my girlfriend’s looking at me like I’m some sort of weirdo. ‘We’re in the Mediterranean, this is the week to turn off, and you’re reading a magazine about the UN.’ But it was addictive.”

When he’s not reading up on the latest political treatise or grilling ex-presidents, O’Leary’s something of an accomplished marathon runner. In this year’s London Marathon (his third) he ran under four hours for the first time. “It was hellish, absolutely hellish! I was over the moon with the time, but I’ve really only enjoyed it in retrospect. It was the least enjoyable marathon I’ve run, because I was pushing myself so hard to get under four hours. But you still have these three or four moments when someone shouts out your name – not ‘cos you’re on the telly, but because you’re name’s on your shirt – and you well-up. The crowd are unbelievable. It’s really strange.”

Sport is not just something he indulges in; he’s a keen viewer as well – when he can get away with it. “I live with my girlfriend now – we’ve done so for the last four months – and your viewing habits just can’t help but change. You lose that battle. I’m watching a lot less sport, which I hate. I have to negotiate how much live sport I can watch now. My girlfriend always says ‘Can’t you tape it?’ Of course I can’t! It’s live sport, it doesn’t work like that. I am allowed to watch Arsenal games, though.”

If some of his female admirers are becoming a little disillusioned (he lives with his girlfriend AND likes televised sport) it gets worse. He’s also got just about the strangest habit you’ll ever see outside of a David Lynch film: He kisses his bedroom window every day.

“Yes, I admit it’s really weird. It’s disturbing, isn’t it?” he roars, looking anything but disturbed. “I’m less obsessive-compulsive about it than I used to be. When I was little – this is a Catholic education for you – I used to kiss the window and say a prayer.” So window-kissing is a recognised part of Catholic education? “Well, er, no.” So where does it come from? “I’ve no idea.” Shall we move on to Big Brother? “God, yes!”

O’Leary’s role in Big Brother is presenting Big Brother’s Little Brother (henceforth to be referred to as BBLB to prevent typing-induced RSI) the daily teatime show that looks at all things Big Brother with a chirpy irreverence embodied by its presenter. Having started as “a backstreet squirt of a show,” a low-key addendum to Big Brother, under O’Leary it’s developed into one of the mainstays of the schedule.

“A lot of it’s to do with the fact that most fanzine shows go out immediately after the main show, so there’s not that much to talk about – it’s all been covered. But we pre-empt the nightly show, which adds quite a lot to what we can discuss. And also, we’re quite cheeky, which I think people like. I don’t think BBLB’s ever been 100 per cent subservient to the main show. Then there’s the fact that we try and keep ourselves in the dark a bit. That way, we can impart a sense of surprise and excitement to the viewer. People are sophisticated enough these days to know when you’re faking that.”

As a decent sort, with a moral conscience, how does he react to the idea that Big Brother is exploitative, taking advantage of people’s desire to be on TV and then humiliating them for public entertainment? “I think of all the reality shows, Big Brother is the most honest. That’s what I like about it. People that are going in the house know exactly what to expect. They’ve got no complaints when they come out. They know they’re going to have two weeks of notoriety, and then it will tail off. And they’ll make a lot of money in those two weeks.

“The chances are, nine times out of ten, I would imagine that people have gone in the house and said that their lives have changed for the better, be it financial or otherwise, when they come out. It doesn’t promise anything, that you’re going to be a pop star or a TV star. Unless you’re a Nadia or a Jade, and you can’t train to be a Nadia or a Jade.”

Speaking of the contestants, who have been his favourites? (Eat your heart out, Paxman!) “Shell, for obvious reasons! She’s absolutely gorgeous, to the point where I can say this in an interview and my girlfriend will read it and agree with me. I also always thought that John Tickle was a vastly underrated housemate. I see him every now and again, he’s a great bloke. Last year, I adored Victor. I thought he was fantastic – and quite unfairly treated by the press. He was a big black guy who liked Nike, and so regardless of the fact that he was arguing with an absolutely mental Mancunian, he was always going to come out of that being made to look like the aggressor. And Ahmed I loved, because he didn’t take himself seriously at all, and yet he took himself so seriously.

“He came out of the house, and came on BBLB. We always do these little pre-title teasers at the start of the show – just a little throwaway joke. And the props girl had built this foam sandwich. [During Big Brother, Ahmed had complained about being pressurised regarding who to nominate, announcingforcefully “I’m not a sandwich!”] We got Ahmed to lie in it, and he was to say ‘I’ve changed my mind, I am a sandwich.’ He was more than happy to do that. So he lay in the sandwich and then asked the props girl ‘What’s this red stuff?’ She said ‘Oh, I dunno, bacon?’ And he said ‘I won’t lie in bacon, I’m a Muslim.’ So she answered ‘Okay, then, it’s tomato.’ He was having none of it. ‘No, you said it was bacon.’ They were both slightly missing the point – it was a piece of foam. Anyway, he did the sandwich bit, but only after we’d taken the bacon out.”

The interview is coming to a close. Pizza’s arrived, it’s lunchtime on the photo set downstairs (at which, it’s worth noting, Dermot spends most of his time rushing around clearing up and checking people have got enough to eat and drink). Is there, I ask, anything he can tell us about the new series of Big Brother? A little snippet to whet the appetite of the shows legion of fans?

“I’m 100 per cent serious when I tell you that they don’t tell me anything ahead of time. They know they can’t trust me. I will tell anyone – I’m a terrible blabbermouth and gossip. If I know something, I feel duty bound to tell the first person that asks. In interviews, in casual conversation, with friends, with friends of friends, loose acquaintances, my newsagent, anyone.”

It’s this improbable mental image of him in his newsagent that sums up the contradictions that make up Dermot O’Leary, showbiz presenter, Big Brother fan, window-kisser and political philosopher: “The latest Prospect magazine, please. The one with the article about the rise of the new right in Eastern Europe. Incidentally, have you heard the latest on Big Brother? You won’t believe this…”