Ant & Dec
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Anthony McPartlin (born 18 November, 1975) and Declan Donnelly (born 25 September, 1975), from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England are popular presenters of light entertainment television programmes in the United Kingdom, as the duo Ant & Dec.
Children's TV
Although the young Ant had built some television experience with a brief stint on the children's classic, Why Don't You?, Declan made his acting debut on the set of the BBC children's drama series Byker Grove. Their friendship continued off screen as well as on.After they left the TV series, they turned their hand to pop music, releasing (under their Byker Grove character names "PJ and Duncan") songs such as "Let's Get Ready to Rhumble" which included the lines "Watch us wreck the mic, watch us wreck the mic, watch us wreck the mic, psyche!". In total, they released three albums: Psyche and Top Katz as PJ and Duncan and The Cult of Ant & Dec as Ant & Dec.
Later the duo moved into television presenting, having their own sketch show on Children's BBC in 1995, as well as an early evening show on Channel 4 in 1997. After presenting various other BBC programmes they signed to the rival ITV network in the early 2000s.
They enjoyed success fronting ITV's Saturday morning children's programmes SMTV Live and .
General programming
They subsequently moved to Saturday evening to present fare aimed at adults such as Friends Like These (for the BBC), Pop Idol and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. Their highest audience figures to date were obtained whilst presenting I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in February 2004.They are such good friends, and have achieved such popularity as a duo that they are hardly ever seen apart on screen. This leads to them receiving joint nominations for awards for example in 2002, at the relatively young age of 27, they received a joint Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards. It is a running joke that many people do not know which of them is Ant, and which Dec. In fact, a 2004 Daily Mirror poll found that 70% of viewers could not tell them apart [link]. As a result, photographs of the duo are now almost always taken with Ant on the left and Dec on the right.
In 2005, as part of the ITV Network's 50th birthday celebrations, they were back on television fronting Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, a celebration of some of ITV's most enduring gameshows from the past 50 years.
They have, albeit infrequently, returned to acting. They played themselves in the film Love Actually (in which Bill Nighy's character referred to Dec as "Ant or Dec"). They have returned to their Geordie roots in a one-off tribute to The Likely Lads ( in which they remade one of the classic episodes) and by returning to Byker Grove for Geoff's funeral.
Their latest projects included the film Alien Autopsy, and TV show Soccer Aid. Their next major TV series is a game show called PokerFace which aired on ITV1 on 10th July 2006.
See also
External links
- [itv.com]
- [Unofficial Ant & Dec fan site]
- [Unofficial Ant & Dec fan site with crossword]
- [Unreality TV - News of Ant & Dec on I'm a Celebrity]
- [National TV Awards 2002]
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