Victoria Derbyshire 'signs up for I'm A Celebrity'

23 October 2020

Victoria Derbyshire has signed up for 'I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!'.

Victoria Derbyshire

The BBC journalist is said to have accepted an offer to appear in the show after the location moved from Australia to a castle in Wales - due to the coronavirus pandemic - so she wouldn't be too far away from her family.

An insider said: "Victoria is always game for a challenge so when she was approached for 'I’m A Celebrity' she jumped at the chance.

"It’s always something she’s wanted to do but because of her family she’s never wanted to fly to Australia and be away from them for so long.

"When the show moved to Wales and the opportunity came up, she didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth so said yes straight away."

The 52-year-old TV presenter is said to be excited about taking part in the programme, which has moved location to Gwrych Castle in north Wales.

The insider added to The Sun newspaper: "Victoria is really looking forward to the challenges and to getting started on the show."

Other stars expected to brave the cold Welsh winter weather in the castle are thought to be Vernon Kay, AJ Pritchard, Jessica Plummer and Beverley Callard, with more set to be revealed.

Earlier this week, it was confirmed 'I'm A Celebrity' crew members will wear "proximity monitors" to help enforce social distancing.

Richard Cowles - ITV Studios entertainment director - said: "On a Covid level, everyone’s got proximity monitors on them so basically they can’t come within two metres of each other without it buzzing and flashing and reminding them to step away."

The show itself - which is set to air next month, once Wales has ended its circuit breaker lockdown - will be edited in London.

Richard added: "In terms of the technology, we've for example, with the castle itself, we've mapped that completely remotely so we can get all of our camera positions and everything done off-site without having to go there.

"We have basically created a whole virtual walk through of that castle, so all of the set can be built remotely back here and then transported up there.

"All the camera positions, the lens length - all of that sort of stuff can be done.

"We're even going to have our edits in London to try to reduce the number of people travelling to Wales and to reduce the number of people that could potentially spread Covid."