As the young women bully, bicker and bubble in their ever more revealing bikinis and the older men resort to grumbling and groaning (yes, Kiljoy-Sulk, I mean you) the middle-aged female contestants stand alongside the former boy-band members and ex-s
oap stars with heads held high. When it comes to campfire spirit and a surprising willingness to eat kangaroo testicles, middle-aged women are the Swiss Army knives of celebrity jungle contestants: adaptable, eminently practical and surprisingly useful.
Esther Rantzen, 68, has been the biggest surprise of this year's line-up.
Flirty and fun (if you didn't see former EastEnder Joe Swash, 24, washing her hair then you missed a televisual treat), Rantzen is the camp confidante and s he's inventive too. When the group was struggling for drinking water, she selflessly offered her clean pants as a strainer.
Wandering around in her leopard-print bathing suit, she's handled herself with grace and charm. And, just for clarity's sake, let me reiterate this is a woman who is nearly 70, living in a jungle camp and competing in the most disgusting tasks for the reward of, well, adequate food. I know they do it to boost their careers and I know they're handsomely paid, but still, I wouldn't do it.
Yet from Rantzen there's been no backbiting or bitching, no pretending to be younger than she is. She doesn't seem in the least bit threatened by (or particularly interested in) the younger women in the camp; rather she's a woman who, like several middle-aged women before her, is bringing a lifetime's experience to this testing televisual environment.
Former tennis star Martina Navratilova, 52 – picked by sixtysomething former jungle survivor Janet Street-Porter as a potential winner of this year's series – has already shown herself as daring and brave. Okay, she accidentally set her pants on fire while trying to dry them, but still, her good humour never wavered. Describing herself as "no rookie", she may just be the feistiest contestant yet, although she's been staying a little quieter than many expected. Perhaps she's playing the long game?
Perhaps she's realised that staying quiet is a way of staying clear of Robert Kilroy-Silk? Rantzen and Navratilova are only the latest in a long line of capable, competent, middle-aged women who seem to take the privations of jungle life in their boot-clad stride. In doing so they prove that reality TV need not be a bastion of 'yoof' entertainment but can actually offer a challenge to ageist attitudes. What's interesting is that there's a clear difference here between the men and the women.
Whereas many of the older men who've gone down under with Ant and Dec have struggled to keep their good humour (Mike Reid, Cannon & Ball and Rodney Marsh were all tetchy tantrum-throwers in past series), women in their fifties and sixties have largely shown themselves to be good sports, full of team spirit and camaraderie and a dab hand at whipping up a kangaroo stew in times of need.
In the first series, Christine Hamilton, 59, exhibited a Dunkirk spirit that won her third place. Implacable former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond, 58, was robbed – I mean pipped at the post – by Kerry Katona in series two and Janet Street-Porter came a respectable fourth a year later. In 2005, Carol Thatcher, 55, won the show (not even the sight of her peeing beside her camp-bed in the middle of the night put the public off) and two years later ex-model Janice Dickinson, 53, came second.
Plucky, funny and hilariously bossy, these women are often what really makes the show worth watching, more so than tiny bikinis or the sight of Brian Paddick showering in the nude.
There's something about the jungle that seems to really suit them. Perhaps that's the environment that allows women to best show the advantages of age and experience – because it's not always this way.
Rula Lenska and Vanessa Feltz nearly lost their marbles worrying about their youthful competition in the Celebrity Big Brother house; Edwina Currie was flambéed in Hell's Kitchen and Gloria Hunniford struggled on Strictly.
The celebrity/reality mix is not always kind to women over 50 – reality television panders to vanity and youth. Head to a hot, humid jungle full of bugs and reptiles, with only a camp fire to cook on and a rickety bed to sleep in, however, and middle-aged women prove that not only are they the most entertaining contestants in this environment, but often the ones to beat.
Another distinguishing feature of the older female celebrity is that she seems not to need to cry all the time over the slightest little thing.
Navratilova has so far remained dry-eyed, while Rantzen, in a genuine show of emotion, shed only a few tears when talking about the death eight years ago of her husband, TV producer Desmond Wilcox.
Glamour model Nicola McLean, 25, and Carly Zucker, 24, on the other hand, have at times (when they've not been keeping themselves amused by relentlessly picking on ex-Dollar singer David Van Day) put the camp in danger of flooding with all their blubbing. Staying cool under pressure (Navratilova's demolishing of Zucker in one of the challenges was a particular highlight), thanks to age and experience, seems to keep you more cheerful than a tiny bikini and surgically enhanced breasts.
Fay Stanton, 61, office manager for Help the Aged in Edinburgh, isn't at all surprised by this. A keen runner, who's completed marathons since she took up running at the age of 46, Stanton thinks older women's life experiences set them up as survivors. "The younger women there are maybe used to other people doing things for them, whereas the older ones will be used to doing things for themselves and for others. They might have brought up children, so they're adaptable. They won't panic."
She's right. Since the show started in 2002, older female contestants have on the whole shown themselves to be calm and collected in the face of serious provocation: celebrities who cop off with each other to boost flagging careers (Cerys Matthews, Marc Bannerman, Katie Price and Peter Andre – guilty as charged), self-obsessed egotists (Darren Day and David Dickinson) and the relentless, irreverent cheeky-chappiness of Ant and Dec.
There's something about the vanity of younger celebrities that doesn't fit with the deprivations of the jungle. Women whose careers are built on how they look seem to struggle with the absence of mirrors and the fact that there's nowhere to plug in their hair straighteners. Older women (the exception being Toyah Wilcox, 50, who ran straight to the cosmetic surgery clinic on leaving the jungle, but let's not allow one woman's Botox to diminish the triumph of others) don't seem to care as much. They get on with it. And the viewing public loves them for it.
There are exceptions, though. Jan Leeming was a whiner. Faith Brown a travesty. But it gives me great pleasure to say that middle-aged women in I'm a Celebrity... are Amazons – they are fearless, full of practical skills, determined in the face of the deprivations and humiliations of their trial by TV. They're role models for us all.
BACKGROUND: GAME GALSCHRISTINE HAMILTON, 2002: Back in the day when the Hamiltons were still best known for corruption scandals and lavish holidays, Christine made her way into the jungle and into the hearts of the British public. A knack for straight talking, bossiness and empathy for her fellow contestants led to Hamilton winning third place in the final. She stated before going to the jungle: "I am quite tough, psychologically and physically. I like people and I am interested in others."
JANET STREET-PORTER, 2004: Opinionated and headstrong, when Janet Street-Porter arrived in the jungle viewers (and no doubt the show's producers) were expecting a clash of personalities with the other contestants. Street-Porter delivered her no-nonsense attitude with lashings of kangaroo stew and showed her softer side, too, attracting a new wave of fans. She finished in fourth place. She said: "I'm sick of people asking me how long I'll last before I bail out – they clearly misunderstand my ruthless nature. I'm in this thing to win, so vote for me and strike a blow for crumblie power!"
JENNIE BOND, 2004: A former BBC Royal Correspondent who famously covered Princess Diana's funeral, Jennie Bond was known for her tact and wit. She used the same skills in the jungle and even survived being placed in a dark coffin filled with rats for ten minutes. She finished in second place. During her time in the jungle Jennie reflected: "I don't think it means the public hate you if you're picked (for a trial], I think they just want to see you humiliated."
JANICE DICKINSON, 2007: Proclaiming herself to be 'the world's first supermodel', when Dickinson strutted into the jungle she described herself as "real, except for my t*ts!". Her acid tongue and devilish sense of humour won her an army of fans. She finished in third place.
