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I'm A Celebrity Watch: Relief for Rita

There's a Jew in the jungle this year. Keren David rates Rita Simons' wet and windy debut on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here

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Strictly ignored us Jews this year. The Great British Bake Off failed to find anyone familiar with bagels and challah.

But, hurray, we have a Jewish contestant on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. And as the niece of The Apprentice’s Lord Sugar, Rita Simons comes from reality TV royalty.

Rita was formerly a star of EastEnders, playing Roxy Mitchell who, alas, was written out by being drowned in a swimming pool. On I’m a Celebrity, pools of water tend to be homes for crocodiles and sharks, so hopefully Roxy’s fate was no omen.

I’m a Celebrity is popular for showing Z-listers cracking up and slimming down, camping in the Australian rain forest, sniping at each other and competing for food by taking part in ordeals called Bushtucker Trials in which they are humiliated and tortured — pelted with cockroaches, smothered by snakes — while presenters Ant and Dec laugh at them. Yes, great entertainment for the whole family. But this year, with Ant in rehab, the lovely Holly Willoughby has taken his place. She’s almost in tears as the stars are tormented. And with that, the tone of the show seems to have softened.

Astonishingly, everyone is being nice to each other. When Rita’s team (having foolishly failed to pick Harry Redknapp as their strategist) floundered in the river, the other team jumped in to save them. And everyone has been supportive and appreciative of Anne Hegarty’s openness about her autism and (slightly less so) Rita’s OCD, ADHD and anxiety.

So far, Rita’s adventure has been pretty uneventful. Her hair still looks very pink and very shiny, a great ad for her hairdresser husband. And when she finally dared to brave the camp’s dunny, ITV meanly broadcast the explosive noise as she broke wind. In this new, kinder I’m A Celebrity climate, Twitter sympathised with Rita’s embarrassment, or “Fans SLAM ITV for airing embarrassing Rita Simons moment”, as the Daily Express put it.

The niceness can’t last. Noel Edmonds arrives tonight. 

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