I'm glad my belly-flop made such a Splash! It's the celebrity diving show branded a new low for TV - but contestant HELEN LEDERER has no regrets
|
Going back down the steps is not an option. I’d have to squeeze past the camera crew for one thing. I say the words my sports therapist has taught me: ‘I embrace the humiliation. I love the humiliation. I love this.’
I’m standing in a swimming costume in front of five-and-a-half million Saturday night TV viewers. And I’m about to throw myself off a very high surface.
I do my three positions. One: arms up (never mind if they zoom in on the bingo-wings — I’m loving it, remember). Two: I bend over as far as possible (please let that cameraman have the decency to steer clear of my generous backside). Three: I go up on my toes... I’m tipping... I’m tipping...
Scroll down for video
She's off: Helen Lederer dives and emerges unscathed on new celebrity diving show 'Splash!'
And then I’m airborne. At least I think I am. I’m not up there any more, so I must be somewhere. Unless I’m dead. Am I dead? I’m wet. I’m warm. I am indeed alive.
I bob up like a cork and hear clapping.
How on earth did I get here?
My agent rang while I was in a shop and asked: ‘Would you do a TV show?’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Agent: ‘A reality TV show?’
Me: ‘If it’s Celebrity Mastermind, how long do I get to think up a specialist subject?’
Agent: ‘It’s not Celebrity Mastermind.’
Me: ‘So, what do I have to do?’
Agent: ‘Dive.’
Me: ‘Seriously. What do I have to do?’
Agent: ‘Dive. With Tom Daley. They need to know in the next hour.’
Help! Mentor Tom Daley had his work cut out teaching Helen how to dive
I’ve spent 25 years on the cusp of showbusiness and the only way I can get back on telly is to try to drown myself?
Something darker occurs to me. I would be required to wear a bathing suit.
I rang back 59 minutes later and said: ‘Yes,’ in a sulky, depressed sort of way.
I could imagine the headlines dedicated to yet another reality show with fat Z-listers sinking to new depths of chlorine. Although I hadn’t quite realised just how bad the savaging would be, I was aware that the sight of my middle-aged bod — plumped up from the joys of Christmas crisps and Cava — might be a bit of a challenge for some. But I was in it, if not to win it, exactly, then certainly to get paid.
The next day I was undergoing a medical — I expected them to question my sanity, but no joy there I’m afraid.
And the day after I walk into the pool in Luton (where the show is to be filmed) wearing an unsightly cossie that a very kind costume lady had given me thinking it might help. It didn’t.
I tried it on and as I hoisted the lycra over my tummy, I knew that denial was the only way to get me out of the house and into a pool with complete strangers.
When it came to choosing a swimsuit for the actual TV show, I went shopping with the costume lady in Harrods. She’d already warned the sales girl that I was coming.
'In retrospect, I don't think it was that bad, really': Helen scored a four, a five and a four for her dive.
They were both wearing their bravest smiles to greet me. I fingered all the sexy skimpy stuff for women who buy swimwear in Harrods to go on winter-sun cruises and ended up pointing at a black one-piece which was German and designed to hold in a hausfrau.
It wouldn’t be big enough, sadly. So I instructed the costume lady to fashion me a bespoke girdle out of three widths of knicker elastic.
She nodded and came up with a lacy diamante day-dress which we told the show’s producers was a water outfit.
But before the spangly skirt-suit, there was the training costume. And the training. To be fair to the producers, they’d asked me if I could swim, and I’d kind of fudged it.
I couldn’t exactly remember. I could manage a width couldn’t I? In truth, my only memories of swimming were at the outdoor Lido in Eltham with my friend the summer we were 13.
Moment of truth: Helen prepares to take the plunge in dress rehearsal
We ate honeycomb bars wrapped in greaseproof paper and sunbathed while we looked at boys. Or in the indoor pool at school where I would be admonished by the PE teacher to ‘hurry up’.
Yet here I am — standing on the side of the most enormous pool.
We are asked to look skywards. The top diving board appears to be level with the planet Uranus.
From out of the clouds, Tom Daley, our all-round smiley mentor (in a will-o’-the-wisp of a cossie) dives effortlessly into the water.
Utterly scared, me and my fellow contestants pull at our Lycra nervously and try to look engaged.
For the first dive, I manage a sort of head-first plunge which I felt was not far from a miracle.
It may have looked like a thigh-flop — but that’s surely one up from belly and not too bad for a first go. The first training session mainly involved meeting the other celebs, getting wet and staring at Tom.
The second was about developing a needy and urgent co-dependence with each other and Tom. And then we had a break for Christmas.
All through the turkey season, I was thinking: ‘I can’t do it.’ New Year came and went. I was still convinced that I couldn’t do it.
The thought of standing on the three-metre-high board and seeing the water below, all that way down, kept me awake at night.
How could I possibly turn myself upside down and hurtle into the unknown on purpose?
But soon it was time to resume our diving schedule.
Jake Canuso (from the TV sitcom Benidorm) was obviously born to wear trunks — and, it turns out, — born to dive, too. Comedian Omid Djalili, is funny, fearless and the kind of man to talk to when choking through a mascara and snot malfunction in the water.
Jenni Falconer (the TV presenter) is so good at this — she’s superbly good at everything she does — and Jade Ewen (the Sugababes singer) is totally sweet and looks amazing in her bikini.
While I was mastering getting out using the pool steps while trying to un-plug my cossie legs, the others were spinning, jumping or doing three-point turns in the air.
Tom took me up on to the three-metre board and I nearly fainted. I thought it was best to be clear with the Olympic star, so I just said: ‘No’.
But he said, in a very serious voice, that I had to dive off the board to go on the show. ‘You can’t be serious?’ I whispered. He was.
I clearly needed help. So I sought the attention of a sports psychologist who suggested I might try to celebrate my fear of humiliation.
For good measure, I topped this up with a recommended sports hypnotist who advised me to make the fear go way by turning it into a positive. Quite how, though, was another matter.
And, then, suddenly, it was show time.
Helen looks skyward (left) before she bends over (right) in preparation for her first dive live on television
In retrospect, I don’t think it was that bad, really. The judges gave me a four, a five and a four, which is not quite respectable, but one of the judges, the comedian Jo Brand, very gallantly added she’d have liked to have given me more but wasn’t allowed.
Possibly on the grounds that it was a teeny bit rubbish.
No one said anything truly hateful, although the word ‘car crash’ might have been mentioned.
That night, after as much wine as I could hoover up, I was told my dive was ‘trending’ on Twitter.
I didn’t want to see the comments as all my recent therapy had told me I didn’t need to dwell on the negative. And apart from being referred to as a ‘fat idiot’ by one gentleman newspaper columnist — which I’m more than happy to own up to — most people have commented on my costume and the fact that they wouldn’t have done it.
The word ‘brave’ has been mentioned. As has the word ‘mad’.
Would Celebrity Mastermind have been easier? At least I wouldn’t have needed to wear a cossie.
VIDEO Comedienne Helen Lederer perfects the belly flop...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2258768/Splash--Celebrity-diving-branded-new-low-TV--contestant-HELEN-LEDERER-regrets.html#ixzz2HNH6tETZ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
