miniature heroes; The pint-sized Pop Idol presenters Ant and Dec are

ANT and Dec - two artful dodgers with the butter-wouldn't-melt faces of Oliver Twist are telling me about the bad taste brainwaves they've had for shows. Badger baiting is mentioned and then they are on to deeper passions. "We used to have a lot on SM:TV that would never have worked at that time in the morning," Ant laughs. "Dec had the idea of calling this kid Horny The Hornblower Who Honks His Horn, and he would sing, 'I'm horny, horny, horny, horny'. We could have justified it to be honest, because he did honk his horn, didn't he?"

"He did," nods Dec. "And it was a pop hit."

Ant continues. "But the powers that be ..."

" ... decided that it wouldn't be right to have a ten-year-old child singing about being horny on a Saturday morning," says Ant, finishing his sidekick's sentence, a trait they have in common with old married couples everywhere. "On SM:TV and other bits and bobs we've done, we always used to say 'Can ah be sick in this scene?' Like with soup and that! They always used to say that we couldn't, but it would have been funny, ah think." He looks downcast, a frown passing like a cloud over his famously large forehead. "We just come up with loads of ideas like that from things that make us laugh when we're out."

And that is the secret of Ant and Dec's success. They have made a career out of converting pub conversations into popular television. You know the boring drunk guys by the quiz machine who reckon that them and their mates are funnier than any of those chancers on telly because, och, you ought to hear the crack when they're out for a bevvy? Well that's Ant and Dec, except somehow they've really done it.

They've gone from the Bull & Gate to Gareth Gates in a few short years, rising from the bottom of a pint of Broon Ale to the fabulous frothy top of the showbiz ladder. They're millionaires, widely proclaimed geniuses of live television, "one of the great couples of our time", according to Bono, so famous at the age of 26 that they no longer have surnames. And yet despite this seemingly effortless success - and seemingly is the key word here - everyone in Britain loves them. How in the name of Cat Deeley did that happen?

To find out, I'm spending the day with them in Newcastle as they remake a classic episode of Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, the fondly remembered Seventies sitcom. In the spirit of silliness, I'm actually in the thing, having somehow ended up with the job of "background artist", a rather elaborate term for someone who hangs around in the back of a scene to make it look that bit more real. Not that I'm putting the part down. I'm sure in years to come my performance as Wee Bloke In A Black Jacket Whispering About His Holidays And Drinking Cold Coffee will come to be regarded as a seminal moment for the small screen. Up there with the elephant having a poo on Blue Peter.

This scene will last three or four minutes on screen but takes ten hours to film. In that time I get to study Ant and Dec, to try and work out what they're really like, to keep an eye out for masks slipping, cracks appearing. And I have to admit that in the end, they're just like they are on TV, which is to say that they skilfully walk a line between bland and edgy. They are impish but never really bad, cheeky but never really mean. They are the nice guys who finish first and they do that because they are so perfectly balanced. Ant and Dec are truly Zen. They cite George Best and fellow Geordie Paul Gascoigne as young men ruined by success, but they don't think they have anything to learn from their mistakes. Bestie and Gazza had to face fame alone. Ant and Dec will always have each other and they don't take that for granted.

We're on location in a cafe called Stereo, near Newcastle's fabulously revamped Quayside, where the Gateshead Millennium Bridge rises like God's own harp from the Tyne. The cafe, a symphony in blond wood, is typical of Newcastle's yuppification - Viz's Fat Slags having been replaced by skinny girls and skinnier lattes. It's perfect for this scene, the first of the episode, in which Terry (originally played by James Bolam, now by Ant) returns from five years in the army and is dismayed to find his beloved Toon changed beyond all recognition. Worse, his best mate Bob (with Dec replacing Rodney Bewes) has embraced the changes. Ant and Dec used to drink in Stereo back when it "was just a good, old pub with pool tables, a big TV and giant Jenga". This, jokes Ant, gives his performance "real bile".

Of course that was when they still lived locally, stars of the hit teen soap Byker Grove. Their characters PJ (Ant) and Duncan (Dec) were written out in 1993, when PJ was blinded in a tragic paintball accident. They took the PJ and Duncan name to front a hugely successful pop career and by 1997 they chalked up 12 top 20 hits and two platinum albums. Still, they never really thought of themselves as proper musicians.

"We always knew we were scamming it," says Dec. "In the end, it just wasn't fun any more." Fun is very high up the Ant and Dec agenda.

During the pop years they moved to London, staying to build their third and most successful career as loveable light entertainment goblins. They once shared a flat and although they now have separate houses, still live only a few doors away from each other.

Ant and Dec both have long-term girlfriends, stability is important to them; it's even higher up the agenda than fun, although probably slightly below fart jokes - but their greatest love affair does seem to be with each other. Off-camera, they continue to sit close together and genuinely seem rather lost when out of each other's company. It's quite impossible to get one of them on his own. Corner Dec for a couple of questions and Ant materialises by his side. Grab Ant for a sneaky chat and there's Dec, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

Did you know, I ask them, that a newspaper poll recently named you 240th and 241st most powerful people in Britain?

"Powerful! Really?" they laugh.

Me: "You were sandwiched between Margaret Thatcher and Nick Hornby."

Dec: "What a lovely place to be! Are we more powerful than Margaret Thatcher or less?"

Me: "Less powerful than Thatcher, but more powerful than Hornby."

Dec (chortling): "That's not bad. That's not bad. Ho-ho-ho! I'd no idea."

Ant (pretending to be outraged): "Ah'm gutted! Two hundred and odd? That's quite low down. Ah thought we'd do better than that."

Since moving south their career has gone supernova. Thanks to inspired items such as Wonky Donkey, their Saturday morning show SM:TV managed to attract not only the target audience of children, but also a new constituency of hungover twenty and thirysomethings, plus the odd celebrity fan. "I think they are geniuses, I really do," Helen Mirren has said. "They are so cute. Whenever I am in Britain, I get up early on Saturdays so that I can watch their show in peace. I think my husband is getting a bit jealous."

Of course all this fuss is nothing compared to the phenomenon of Pop Idol. As hosts they played good cops to Simon Cowell's high- waisted, slightly camp bad cop, sympathising and celebrating with the contestants, guiding Gareth through his stammering interviews and even finding a good word to say about Darius. They emerged as the real winners of the series, and have since signed a new (pounds) 2 million deal with ITV. In March, at the Television and Radio Industries Club awards, they were named TV personalities of the year. At this point they could probably go to the middle east and patch things up between Sharon and Arafat with little more than a cheeky wink and some mild sexual innuendo.

Naturally, their return to Newcastle to film Likely Lads has sparked feverish local interest. On the day before I meet them they are mobbed by screaming girls, desperate for autographs. In my hotel room, I discover a note from the maid asking whether I can get her a signed photograph. "It's fabulous being back here, fabulous," says Dec. "We've always wanted to film something of some sort of weight up here. And this is the perfect opportunity. We said all the locations had to be done in Newcastle. It's such a beautiful city now."

Despite their reputation for subversiveness, both Ant and Dec have a tendency to speak in the flavourless on-message soundbites of New Labour politicians. They may have had more complaints upheld against them by the ITC than the BNP's 1997 election broadcast, but they seem oddly afraid of offending anyone at all.

THE cast have been on set since 9am. Ant and Dec arrived together. They are both in costume, but Ant looks pretty much like he normally does, while Dec seems to be dressed for a job interview in slacks, a nice shirt and sensible shoes. "Man at Next," he harrumphs. Just then, Cold Feet's John Thomson turns up wearing sunglasses and, weirdly, lots of tiny little plasters in his left ear.

The episode they are remaking - No Hiding Place - concerns Bob and Terry's efforts to get through the day without hearing the score of the England vs Bulgaria match, which kicks off at lunchtime but will not be on the telly till the evening. Thomson is playing their friend Flint, who spends the whole day chasing them around trying to tell them the football result.

"I feel genuinely honoured to be asked, actually," he says. "The script's great. It just goes to show, y'see. A lot of the sitcoms now are useless. They're all about chatty middle-class families. Of course sitcoms have been ruined by political correctness. Sitcoms used to do types but you can't have types now because it's stereotyping and it's prejudiced."

Today's scene contains some homophobic language, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays 29 years after it was first broadcast. The original 1973 script is largely intact, except for a few tweaks to make it timely. "We do feel as if we are looking after a bit of British history in a way," says Rob Clark, the executive producer. "We don't want to cock this up, so the whole feel of The Likely Lads is being treated with kid gloves." Ant walks past the table where we are talking. "I don't like either of them, actually," says Clark, loudly. Ant gives a big comedy wail.

Soon filming is underway. Because they have to shoot from every angle so that later, in editing, they can cut between different points of view, Ant and Dec end up delivering their lines at least 200 times. "This is like Groundhog Day," says Dec, strolling over between shots. "We stopped finding the script funny after the first week in rehearsal."

They are amazing to watch. There's a theory that they haven't had to work hard for their success, that because they specialise in live TV all they do is be themselves in front of the camera. But there's no doubt that they aren't afraid to graft. "I've never worked with two people who have approached something so professionally," says Clark, who has criminally overlooked the talented background artist making his debut today.

One weird thing about Ant and Dec is that, despite their celebrity, people tend to think of them as a single entity and usually don't know which is which. But watch them for a while and differences do emerge. When a mobile phone goes off, Ant whistles annoyingly along with the jingle. If the hat of a St John's Ambulance woman happens to be lying around, as it is today, Dec will put it on and wiggle it around, Chaplin-like. Dec is also far and away the more welcoming and approachable. At one point I'm reading an article in the Daily Sport with the headline Fart During Laser Op Sets Fire To Patient's Testicles when he strolls over and stabs a finger at the page. "Have you seen that story?" he beams. "It's brilliant!" He is, by his own admission, "the sleaziest" of the two.

Back to the filming. I'm not sure what an assistant director does on other film sets, but his role today is seemingly to provide Ant with a steady stream of fags to chug on when the camera stops. Meanwhile the director Bob Spiers - a grandmaster of British comedy who has made everything from Dad's Army to Absolutely Fabulous - smokes constantly; the blue plume rising up from behind his monitor probably says "I'd like one more take", his mantra, in Navajo. Staring intently at the screen he grins and grimaces, laughing at some gurning by Ant, screwing up his face when Dec fluffs a line.

I ask whether he feels under pressure remaking a solid gold classic. "I'm used to similar pressure," he says. "I directed the second series of Fawlty Towers and nobody thought it was as good as the first series but who can tell now? The other thing to remember is that these programmes were made nearly 30 years ago and there is a whole generation who just don't know anything about The Likely Lads. So it's a bit like making a really goodcover version of a great song."

Having worked with various double acts including French and Saunders and Fry and Laurie, Spiers is well placed to judge the talents of his latest twosome. And he seems genuine in his praise. "I rate them very, very highly. A lot of comedians are very good actors because they have the timing. It's up to them what they do next, but this is a good launch pad for a very successful acting career in both TV and film."

Over on the other side of the room, Ant and Dec are slouching around. Ant reads The Sun, which today contains a photograph of Ant reading The Sun. Dec is talking on his mobile. He has a long conversation with a woman, possibly his girlfriend, the actress Clare Buckfield. Hanging up, he has an announcement to make: "She's bought me a mop from the one pound shop." He looks well chuffed. The photographer wanders over. Do they have time to walk down to the river for some pictures? They do. We all troop outside. There are a couple of possible routes and Rob Clark suggests they take one which avoids the road. "Why?" squints Ant. "In case one of us throws himself into it?" In fact, it's to avoid causing a traffic accident as drivers crane their necks to glimpse the pair.

Down by the river, Ant and Dec pose in front of the old bridge and then the new bridge. A crowd quickly gathers. People take photographs, hellos are shouted, a rubbernecking cyclist almost crashes into a post. On the way back, a parked lorry peeps and the workmen inside wave. Ant and Dec give them the thumbs up. Even a 15 minute taste of their fame is a strange thing indeed. They don't seem to mind, although they do sigh that it has "gone a bit mad" since Pop Idol. They are fed up with people asking them what Gareth and Will are like.

A second series of Pop Idol is planned for next year. Before that there's an as-yet-untitled live family entertainment show for ITV, and the World Cup, for which they perform the official England song. First though, there's The Likely Lads. "Obviously when we were asked to do it our first reaction was excitement," says Dec. "Then we got to the stage where we went 'Shit! Now we actually have to do it! And we have to make it good!'" It is a project close to their hearts. They grew up watching repeats and are terrifically excited that Rodney Bewes has a cameo in their remake. "He gave us some good advice," laughs Ant. "Aye," says Dec. "Learn your lines, keep your shoulders down, and never look at the camera."

When Dec was a kid he remembers seeing the Tyneside Irish Club, the pub his mum and dad ran, in an episode of The Likely Lads. "We all went 'Wah! There's the club! There's the club! Bloody hell!' It made a big impression." When they first moved down to London they used to have Likely Lads nights in their flat, watching video after video. My idea for a Likely Lads drinking game is met with loud approval. "That's a good idea!" bellows Ant. "Every time someone says 'man' you have to down a pint! Great!"

Back in the cafe, John Thomson has to rush off - something about "another bloody advert for Hellmann's Mayonnaise" - and Ant and Dec have a few more shots to get in the bag before they can call it a day. Between every take a make-up girl runs up to wipe cappuccino foam from their top lips, and it's hard to believe that these two little guys with the froth moustaches are just about the biggest thing on British television.

To paraphrase the title song, whatever has happened to Anthony David McPartlin and Declan Joseph Oliver Donnelly over the last ten years, a decade in which they have gone from PJ and Duncan to Ant and Dec and finally to AntAndDec, the Janus-faced entertainment monolith, they seem to have somehow, astonishingly, remained the people they used to be. "We don't look at ourselves as a brand or whatever," says Ant. "We're just mates." A likely story? Yeah, but a true one all the sameu No Hiding Place: A Tribute To The Likely Lads is on ITV, May 11

Copyright 2002
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