The Fame Academy is open again, but this time it's to play host to a gaggle of celebrities who'll be put through their singing and dancing paces - all in the name of comedy! The nine Academy students fighting for a place in the sing-off final on the big Comic Relief night started out as: presenter Ulrika Jonsson; actor and comic John Thomson; actor Will Mellor; comedian Jo Brand; producer Paul Ross; Saturday Show presenter Fearne Cotton; Casualty's Kwame Kwei-Armah; presenter and comedian Ruby Wax and finally Doon from Smack The Pony. As the week has progressed, students have been expelled with Will and Kwame appearing to be nudging out in front as the celebrities likely to claim the FA Comic Relief crown. 
Jake's back at the Academy |
Our man backstage will be CBBC's Jake Humphrey. Throughout the week he'll be sending us exclusive photo's and entries for his very own Fame Academy diary, giving us Jake's personal view of events at the Academy. Term starts on Friday 7 March, so before Jake packed his lunchbox, Martin Barber caught up with him over a glass of fizzy pop. What's the difference between this round of Fame Academy and the first show? The big difference this time is not only are they celebrities in the house, but they’re never going to leave the house either! Last time the students in the Academy they used to go down the Shepperton studios for the big showdowns - but this time there is no sanctuary. What used to be the dining room is now going to be the general relaxing and chill-out area. All of the showdown stuff is going to come from the Fame Academy living room. Why are we doing Celebrity Fame Academy? People like to get involved with doing Comic Relief stuff. But the kind of celebrities you see being actors or TV presenters or whatever they are in real life, you never actually see them up on stage singing. Hopefully they’ll be taking it really seriously. I can reveal that some of them have been taking singing lessons to try and prepare themselves for the big event. We know they have got certain talents, but what else can they achieve - it’ll be interesting to see. Let's talk about you and Celebrity Fame Academy. Are you excited about presenting it for CBBC? [Jake’s phone rings, it’s his agent chasing some publicity photos] I can’t wait. CBBC is going to be pretty much like it was before. We’re going to be the cheeky little people taking a sideways glance at what’s going on in the Academy and quite frankly I’m going to be working very, very hard! We’re going to be there almost 24-hours-a-day. We do our first live show at 8am which will be the first place to see what happened the night before. Will any of the old students be around during the week? I’ve a feeling, and nobody has confirmed this, that some of the old students will be showing their faces. Obviously Sinead has just released her single, Ainslie has just released his track, maybe they can offer a few tips to our celebrity students. 
"David just has a permanent smile on his face," said Jake. |
You’ve become quite good mates with David Sneddon, do you get to spend much time hanging out together? Mostly I’ve been at work and he’s been at work, so we’ve kinda bumped into each other in mutual surroundings really. Top of the Pops Saturday and things like that, the guy just have a permanent smile on his face. He’s really chuffed and really excited and I’m sure he’LL be back at the Academy giving some tips to our new students. Being his mate, is he in real life what we see on the TV? Yeah, he’s absolutely lovely. Genuinely funny, a great laugh and a bit mad. I remember the last time we did Fame Academy we did a thing called David’s Monkey Army. We got loads of CBBC viewers to send him monkeys, we presented him with them and he was absolutely over the moon. That’s the kind of slightly strange guy he is. [laughs]
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