He snorts: "My wife was in a six-star hotel but, every morning, they have to get up at 4am and travel an hour and a half into the jungle to see if you're coming out.

"I was in for about 12 or 13 days. I was bitten all over by spiders. I was constipated one day, diarrhoea the next, I were absolutely starving. But more than anything, I was missing Yvonne bigtime.

"I got sent out and I'm crossing that rope bridge and honestly, her first words to me were, 'You don't know what I've been through!' I was like, 'I've been in the bloody jungle, me!'"

I'm A Celeb marked a rare return to TV for one of the former kings of primetime. But Yvonne was against it from the start.

Bobby giggles: "I said to Yvonne, 'I'm going into I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!' She said, 'You're an idiot, Bob – because you've never watched it!' And I hadn't!

"She said, 'You've got to eat bugs!' I don't watch television, you see. But it was fantastic and when people think, yeah, they're out at a hotel. You're not, you're in the jungle 24/7."

Right now, he can't stop laughing. He splutters: "Have you got a computer? Go on YouTube and put in the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club!

"There's me and Tommy in 1974. Tommy's got these big flares with gold inlets and stack heels on and hair. And I'm about eight stone, six, I look awful. We were absolute crap!"

This, their first TV appearance, led to The Cannon and Ball Show's domination of primetime for almost a decade before they fell from favour. But today, more than 40 years on, Bobby is pottering around the St Annes home he and Yvonne share, a contented man.

He grins: "It is lovely here. I'm the only one living round here with my own hips."

Since their TV heyday ended, they've made their home in the theatres, with comedy and panto appearances still drawing huge audiences.

Now they're tackling relatively new ground with the play, Big Bad Mouse. Tommy plays Chunkibix boss Mr Price-Hargreaves while Bobby is reluctant anti-hero, Bloome. Their parts were originally played by comic legends, Jimmy Edwards and Eric Sykes, whose brilliant ad-libbing made it.

Bobby says: "They said to me and Tom, 'Do what you want.' So we just come out, we mess around with the actors and actresses, it's a lot of good fun.

"You can never tell what happens with the audience. The other night, the actress comes over to me and I looked at her and there was like a pregnant pause – and the audience shouted, 'IT'S YOUR LINE!'"

Cannon and Ball famously spent many of their golden years not speaking to each other. But Bobby insists this was exaggerated.

He says: "It was about three years, that's all. That's all it was and it was pressure and people around us wanting to separate us because once you separate, you conquer.

"Only three years. And we're closer now than ever."

Both are now Christians but Bobby insists this wasn't what reconciled them. He says: "He didn't become a Christian until seven years after me. We didn't just do it together. It fascinates everybody, this, but I've just got a faith.

"I'm not religious. Religion tends to be man-made if you like, there's rules and regulations. And my faith isn't that, I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, so I'm just a Christian man."

* Big Bad Mouse is at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool from Monday, July 21 to Saturday, July 26. Box office: 01253 290190.