[Romantic Old Bird]

Well, Davina has never forgotten them, anyway!

Matchmaker of the day





Interview By Wil Marlow



DAVINA McCall is a die-hard romantic.

Throughout each series of Big Brother the presenter spends the entire time willing the housemates' flirting to turn into full-blown romance, while the rest of us just wonder if they're going to have sex on national television.

In her new show, however, she's got the chance to grab Cupid's arrow and fire it herself, as she's stepped into Cilla Black's shoes to front ITV1's Blind Date replacement, Love On A Saturday Night. It's a job she says she was born to do.

"I've always loved getting people together," she grins.

"And I love seeing people happy. One of my favourite experiences on Big Brother was the Helen and Paul thing [in the second series] because nobody saw that coming.

"Everybody kept saying that Paul was playing her and I kept saying he wasn't, he really likes her, and it was almost in spite of himself. Because she was slightly ridiculed by the house it wasn't cool for him to like her, but there were bits of Helen that he really adored.

"I could see that and I was so excited. And I was right, they're still together."

On Love On A Saturday Night, McCall gets to fan the flames of romance herself rather than just watch it flicker. She describes the show as "a very loose format" where she and co-presenter Jonathan Wilkes ("He won't tell me any Robbie Williams gossip - he knows I've got a big mouth.") try various methods to find dates for four or five lovelorn contestants.

"Jonathan will broadcast from somewhere round the country where he'll be doing makeovers," says McCall.

"And I'll be surprising audience members and helping kids choose partners for their mum or dad who's hopeless at dating.

"There's also a 'second chance at love' bit where somebody gets to meet up with three of their exes, who all want to get back with them, and they can choose which one they want to go out for dinner with."

McCall is in her element in this show. It's a job which gives her free reign to do with complete strangers what she already does with abandon with her mates - sort out their love lives.

"I am chronic when it comes to matchmaking," she laughs.

"It's got to the point now where I'm just really annoying. But I've got one on the go at the moment which is quite nice. My friend got so used to me trying to matchmake him that he just gave in and took a girl's number off me and they're going out next week."

It's obvious McCall's enthusiasm for getting people to fall in love is because she's so happy in her own relationship. She's been married to former TV presenter Matthew Robertson for the past four years and the couple have two children - two-year-old Holly and Tilly, who McCall gave birth to last September.

"I had a water birth this time," she says.

"I tried to have a water birth with Holly, but everything slowed down too much when I got in the water so they made me get out and walk up and down the stairs. It was barbaric," she laughs.

"But both births were good. I mean they were long and very painful, but when I look back at it, it was a really positive, empowering, spiritual thing to go through."

Giving birth is a favourite subject of McCall's, and something that, as she says herself, she gets quite "evangelical" about. This year she plans to make a documentary looking at why women aren't getting all the information they need when it comes to having a baby.

"I don't understand why the only place a woman can safely labour in a maternity unit is on the bed," she says, quickly warming to her subject.

"The worst position for a woman to be in labour is on her back," she adds, before getting on the floor to demonstrate why.

"I went down the normal obstetric route for the first 20 weeks of my first pregnancy but the more I talked to my obstetrician the more I realised I wasn't on the same wavelength as him.

"It was a girlfriend who'd had two home births who brought me round to the idea of them. But I didn't tell anybody I was going to have one just in case it didn't happen.

"So I had all these poor journalists camping outside my house for the last month of my pregnancy.

"When I went into labour I kept looking out the window at these photographers sat in their cars waiting for me to go to hospital and was laughing, thinking 'I'm not going to go to hospital'. I felt like taking them a cup of tea."

McCall has had the last seven months off, not only to have Tilly, but to give herself a break from the seemingly endless run of presenting jobs that took up a lot of last year. After Popstars: The Rivals she went on to present the Brit Awards, Big Brother and Reborn In The USA. She admits it was a little too much.

"It's funny because everyone's been saying it was manic for me last year but I actually stopped work in August," she says.

"But it's been quite good to have the time off because I think people were sick to death of me."

This year we won't be seeing as much of McCall on screen, but after Love On A Saturday Night she'll once again be sneaking around outside the Big Brother house and giving big hugs to the evicted housemates in a fifth series of the show.

"I do still get genuinely excited about it," she says.

"I'm having lunch about it next week and I know they're maybe going to tell me a couple of the twisty turny things. This year will be quite interesting because I think the producers were painfully aware that the housemates got on too well last year."

When last year's disappointing series of the reality show was on, even McCall herself - who's always been the show's biggest fan as well as its presenter - said it was a bit dull. But she's loathe to criticise her "baby".

"I think the mix of people was wrong," she says.

"And the producers all agreed that it just wasn't quite there. But for me there were still golden moments. I loved Jon Tickle, I thought he was very funny. And he really did fancy Nush."