Free Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story by Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly

Debbie, played by Nicola, who was still my real-life girlfriend, and Amanda, played by Gemma Graham. As a result of the accident, PJ lost his sight and his girlfriend, but his best mate Duncan vowed to help him through his ordeal.
    The producers had a long chat with me and Dec and explained the size and importance of the storyline and how we’d need to do some research.
    As I mentioned before, Byker Grove had a history of tackling serious issues, like teenage pregnancy or gay kisses (we weren’t involved in that one by the way), and when they covered these subjects, it was always done in a very professional way.
    Other than Dec dabbling with arcade-game addiction, this was the first time we were asked to do proper research for one of these issue stories, so we knew this wasn’t your normal pirate-radio-starting, cult-joining stuff: this was a big deal.
    We went to a school for the blind in Newcastle and spoke to some kids who’d been able to see and had then lost their sight. And what came across was that a lot of them, understandably, were quite angry and frustrated, and that was definitely something that I tried to put into my performance. Another part of our research involved meeting a mobility officer, who taught me how to use a cane and Dec how you guide a blind person. She also taught me how to sit, stand and cross the road in the way a partially sighted or blind person would. She even blindfolded me and made me cross a busy road in Newcastle, using only my sense of hearing. It was the most demanding thing we’d faced in our short careers and the story dominated that series.
     
    To add to the drama, Duncan ended up in the arms of Debbie, PJ’s girlfriend. She was wracked with guilt after the accident, and Duncan comforted her. With kissing. It was pretty strange kissing Ant’s girlfriend, but it was all in the name of acting, and now that we weren’t sawing people in half or unicycling, this was the sort of challenge that came with the job, and we just had to deal with it. It was also my first screen kiss, which added to the pressure, but Ant helped to prepare me and told me what it would be like – not what it would be like kissing his girlfriend, but doing an onscreen kiss.
    It was fine for me, the three of us were all mates anyway, and I was just thankful I didn’t have to do it myself. Kiss Debbie, that is, not Dec – that would have been very unpleasant. The love triangle and the blindness meant we had some seriously meaty stuff to get our teeth into, although there were still a few lighter moments within it all.
    After he left hospital, there was a scene where PJ went home and was greeted by his mam, which obviously meant an actress was required to play the part. Now, normally, the producers would cast an experienced thespian in a demanding role like this one, but on this occasion they decided to break with tradition and cast a complete unknown, someone who’d never done any acting in her life. That someone happened to be my mam.
    It was an odd experience having her on set. Imagine bringing your mam to work with you – I half expected her to tell the director to eat his greens or shout at the props girl for not tidying up.
    Then again, when it came to playing the role of bringing up a grumpy teenager who looked uncannily like me, well, my mam had been playing that part for several years, so she was perfect for it.
    In the scene, PJ’s mam just had to open the door and let him in, she didn’t have to say anything. After a couple of takes, it was clear something was bothering her. Just as we were about to have another go at recording the scene, she stopped.
    ‘Hang on,’ she said in front of the assembled crew. ‘If I was PJ’s mam, I’d speak to him. He’s just got out of hospital, hasn’t he? I’d tell him I loved him, or give him a kiss or a cuddle or something, otherwise I’m going to look heartless!’
    I couldn’t believe it. She wanted to find out her character’s motivation and