If only Katniss Everdeen's experience of the Hunger Games had been this positive.

Advertisement

The I'm A Celebrity contestants faced a Bushtucker trial entitled "the Hungry Games" in Friday night's episode, and it was, of course, thoroughly gross – but no matter how many mud crabs, biting ants and giant spiders were involved, the camp atmosphere remained cheery.

Not even being sent to the "losers camp" and forced to eat basic rations could dampen the contestants' spirits. "I quite like rice and beans," Joel Dommett declared.

123186

Martin Roberts was the only camp mate to get a little sulky, complaining that he didn't like rice and wouldn't eat his beans in case they made him "parp". He may not be so fussy once he's been in the jungle for a day or two, but for now his fellow campers are grateful...

Here's the lowdown on what happened on Day 5:

Danny Baker opened up about his cancer fight

The radio DJ faced a truly horrendous five-year battle with mouth and throat cancer, but has now been given the all-clear. He has, however, been ordered to cover his neck at all times to save it from direct sunlight.

But ever the optimist, Danny revealed one side to his ordeal that could actually help him out in the jungle: thanks to the radiotherapy, his taste buds no longer work. Pig's anus? No problem. Fish guts? Can't taste 'em. Bushtucker trials should be easy-peasy.

Danny's honest discussion with his new camp mates even left Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt teary-eyed with admiration. "He's just mint," she told the camera.

The Rank Tank was exactly as rank as the name implies

Ant and Dec were super excited to kick off the Hungry Games with the Rank Tank challenge. Clad in yellow, Danny Baker and his chosen team-mate Carol Vorderman went up against the blues (Martin Roberts and Sam Quek). The prize? Getting first pick of the celebrities to join each of their teams.

One of the rank tanks in question was a big perspex box filled with water. Each of the celebrity pairs stood in the water while it steadily filled up with eels, mud crabs and even water dragons. To make matters worse, they had to complete tasks using their hands in other perspex tanks involving pythons, spiders, cockroaches, crickets... it was horrible. And yet, they did it. The absolute highlight was when Martin gasped as he felt around in the tank: "What was that? That was big!!"

"That was my hand," explained his team-mate Sam. Oh.

With Danny's yellow team triumphing, he and Carol picked Jordan Banjo, Wayne Bridge, Ola Jordan and Adam Thomas.

On the blue team: Scarlett, Lisa Snowdon, Joel and Larry Lamb.

The yellow team smashed the Bushtucker trial

All the celebs except Sam, Martin, Danny and Carol had to compete to collect the most bugs in their bugs collector.

How did this work? Well, some sadistic programme organiser hit on a great idea for what must surely be classed as a torture device. The celebrities were placed in a two-story contraption, where they were showered with bugs and had to chuck them down a pipe where they were transferred into a bin.

"Catch a falling critter makes it sound really magic when in fact it really isn't," Scarlett observed.

She was right. There was lots of screaming from everyone except Joel, who later explained: "I was imagining us, like, rowing together on a river in Cambridge."

The yellow team collected an impressive 11.39kg of bugs with the help of Lisa's big hands (that's not a mean dig, she's actually very proud of them). So they got to eat a feast while the blue team headed to the harshly-named "losers camp" for dinner.

Next up: the live trial. Each yellow team member chose a blue team member to compete with in a series of horrific challenges involving blended pig brains and the like. But despite Sam's confident assertion that she would ace hers because her dad "specialises in offal", the blue team were left feeling blue as the yellow team won six-nil. Ouch.

Everyone is still best of friends

123185

The camp mates have been worrying away about what will happen to the group dynamic as things get more competitive and as the honeymoon period wears off. "Maybe the Pollyanna existence of the last four or five days is going to be over," said Danny, while Joel compared the splitting of the camp into yellow and blue teams to the time Geri left the Spice Girls: "The beautiful unity of the teams has been divided."

But despite all that, it's just not happened. They're all so lovely to each other: the horrors of Lady C seem like a distant nightmare. Everyone is game for a challenge, and there has been no scheming – just people saying nice things about each other. In the wider climate of world affairs, it's refreshing. Long may it last.

Advertisement

I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! continues on Saturday at 9:25pm on ITV

Authors

Eleanor Bley GriffithsDrama Editor, RadioTimes.com
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement