The Real Full Monty On Ice Press Pack All contents strictly embargoed for publication until Thursday 3rd December 2020 The Real Full Monty On Ice TX Monday 14th Dec and Tuesday 15th December at 9pm Embargoed until 00.01am on Thursday 3 December 2020 It’s back! The shows with the most front on British television are returning this festive season and promise to be bolder and ballsier than ever before. For the very first time, the new line-up of brave celebrities will perform their routines by doing the full monty on ICE, in a winter wonderland spectacular - without a thermal in sight. The petrified class of 2020 will be led by Ashley Banjo and Coleen Nolan, joining forces once again to put them through their paces for the biggest and most daring show yet, all to raise awareness of cancers in intimate areas of the body and the crucial importance of early self-checks to help save lives. The Emmy award-winning and BAFTA-nominated programme is now in its fourth year and the celebrities have tough acts to follow. But with less health checks taking place during lockdown for crucial early diagnosis, the message has never been more important. Stepping up to reveal all on ice this year are Radio 4 Woman’s Hour legend Dame Jenni Murray, actress Linda Lusardi, Love Island’s Shaunghna Phillips, actress Hayley Tamaddon and This Morning’s Dr Zoe. While baring all for the boys will be rugby star Gareth Thomas, actor Jamie Lomas, singer Jake Quickenden, jockey Bob Champion, Diversity’s Perri Kiely and Love Island’s Chris Hughes. All have stories to tell about how cancer has touched their lives or those closest to them. To push them even harder, Ashley has asked some of the former Dancing on Ice professional skaters to perform with the celebrities and DOI’s Dan Whiston will be creating some amazing ice dance routines to get everyone into the Christmas spirit. The fresh set of male and female stars will learn their whole super-sized routine from scratch, before revealing all to the nation in two 90-minute specials to demonstrate the importance of shedding body inhibitions and making checks in intimate areas to prevent cancer. A Spun Gold production Press pack interview with Ashley Banjo Why was it important to be involved in the series again this year? At the start I was thinking to myself, should we do it this year? There is so much going on, should we be talking about this? But I quickly realised, yes - more so than ever. More people are missing health appointments, more lives could be lost. I’ve read articles that a million people have missed mammograms and the projected figures for how many lives could be unnecessarily lost as a result of that. We are all focused on the lives that are being lost from Covid, which is awful, but cancer has not gone anywhere. We need to keep up the checks and the screenings. Otherwise we are going to lose a lot more lives. I want to play my part and really bring that awareness home. Why did you decide to bring the show to the ice for the first time?? Well, on top of that, it’s a case of - how do we make a noise? How do we break through and push this message? With the series being at Christmas this year, we knew we wanted it to be a big winter wonderland extravaganza, so it kind of fell into place to use the ice. Before we knew it, we were doing the Full Monty, on ice, at Christmas, in the middle of a global pandemic. We don’t make it easy for ourselves! What has been the biggest challenge so far? Getting everyone together safely at the moment is a challenge. We’re all being continuously tested and following the guidelines to be safe and responsible. But trying to get everyone together and create this show on ice, I mean - it’s a big group of people, getting everyone up to scratch and being able to pull off this scale of project in this current situation has been really difficult. As a result, this is by far the shortest amount of time we’ve had. We’re just over a week out from the final show and we’ve probably got about 20% of the routine now! We’re closer to the wire than ever. I’m just hoping we can pull it off! How is everyone getting on? Brilliantly. The guys are all hilarious, Bob is such a legend. He can’t skate at the moment but he is so determined to skate in this performance, so I’ve given him a challenge. I can’t take it away from him. They are all great. Gareth is such good fun, obviously he’s a big rugby guy but for filming he had to strut down a catwalk, with the sassiest walk I’ve ever seen, wearing a puffa jacket and a huge pair of fake balls tied to him - to raise awareness. Honestly, the things that happen on this show you’ll never see on anything else! What has it been like learning to skate for this series? I’ve been learning. I’m definitely going to get on the ice. I’m not a great skater so that’s another pressure but I’m getting better! If you’re going to perform on ice, it’s got to be on point. What can viewers expect from the final show? We wanted to up the ante and make it more of a challenge. As well as being fun and festive, the ice will be magical and hopefully it will be a real treat but with a very important message behind it. I think we all need some fun and hopefulness and feelgood at the moment, so we’ll be bringing that. But I would say that at the time of doing this interview, I don’t know what to expect either yet! Press pack interview with Coleen Nolan Why was it important to you to be involved in the series again? The easiest thing in the world to do would have been to say, we’ll leave it to next year. The challenge of making a programme like this during a pandemic and keeping everyone safe is huge. But actually I think this year is more important than any year. Because everyone is so obsessed with Covid that we have forgotten everything else and we have forgotten to check ourselves or go to the doctor. So this message has never been more important. This is my favourite show to do, because cancer has affected my family so devastatingly. To be honest, having spoken about Bernie’s story before - after she sadly passed away, I thought, this series I will just let everyone do their stories and I can be here for moral support. But then of course cancer came and hit my other two sisters this year, so again - it brought it home to me. I want to put that message out there, of being aware and checking yourself. What has it been like putting your skates on for this series? I’m always nervous doing this show because we’re learning an Ashley Banjo routine, which is never going to be easy, plus the whole thing of having to strip off and get our boobs out. But then Ashley thought he’d throw another element at it this year and put the whole thing on ice! I thought, he's got to be joking. But here we are. We were rehearsing yesterday and I stopped and said, this is horrendous! I did Dancing on Ice in 2009 and I swore I would never get on another ice rink again and somehow here I am about to do it AND get my kit off. I just can’t say no to that face (Ashley’s). It’s very difficult. If we can pull it off it will be spectacular and of course it’s all Christmassy – which I think is what people need at the moment. But hopefully we can still get the message across within that, because that’s why we’re here. What else can viewers expect this year? There are a few surprises along the way, it will be very different to previous years. I hope it will take them through every emotion possible. Laughing one minute, crying the next. Checking yourself, even while you’re watching it – I know that happened a lot last year – I got messaged from people who did find a lump while they were watching it and they’d never even thought about checking before. Luckily, they were fine because they’d caught it early. So even if it only helps one or two people again, then it’s worth doing. But after the year everyone has had, I think it will feel very uplifting actually too. What is the dynamic like between all the cast this year? As always, there is such a great dynamic this year. There always seems to be and I think it’s just because it’s a really nice show to be involved in and everyone’s so passionate about it. Everyone has experienced someone close to them having cancer, or their own battle with cancer. There’s a vulnerability about it and we are all nervous, which is a bonding experience. Some days you think, I don’t know if I can do this today, but you think of why you are doing it and the people you are doing it for, and it gives us all a boost to carry on.