It may be almost a year since Nigel Farage scuttled away from I’m A Celebrity Get… Me Out Of Here! with yet another voting defeat under his hat, but I’m afraid his presence still casts somewhat of a shadow over ITV’s biggest hit. Farage is of course now starring in I’m An MP In Clacton… Get Me Out Of Here!, so he probably won’t have the time to give the jungle a second thought this year.

If he did, he’d probably look at the 2024 line-up and think it’s a bit bland. And he wouldn’t be alone in that. After two years of divisive and controversial political bookings, ITV has clearly gone for the safe option. There’s a more wholesome vibe this year and no boats will be rocked. Well, unless you count those dodgy canoes on opening night.

Whether that will prove a smart casting move remains to be seen. I’d imagine it will all boil down to how much value for money ITV gets out of the campmate it has blown this year’s budget on. Coleen Rooney is reportedly pocketing an even higher fee than the £1.5m Farage was said to have taken home last year — and I must admit I’m already wondering why.

Does ITV really believe there is that much mileage left in the Wagatha Christie scandal, which had already sparked a high profile High Court case, a couple of TV dramas, several TV documentaries and a West End stage show since first erupting in the pre-Covid era.

Rooney famously said of the staggering costs of the case, “the money could have been better spent elsewhere”, and ITV will be hoping to avoid a similar verdict when the curtain falls Down Under next month.

Ant & Dec are obviously banking on the viewers lapping up the Wagatha stuff. When they dropped their first joke about it on opening night, Ant issued a rather ominous “there’ll be lots of those” warning.

Hopefully The Boys will come to their senses and realise that the joke could wear very thin very quickly. With a bit of luck they may have even already accepted they are never going to top Rooney’s campmate Dean McCullough who provided the opening night’s highlight when he theatrically yelled “You’re coming with me Wagatha Christie!” as he picked her to be his partner for the race to camp. (Incidentally, if Rebekah Vardy really has trademarked ‘Wagatha Christie’, ITV could be in for an expensive three weeks.)

Read more: I’m a Celebrity

I’m a Celebrity’s highest paid stars

All the winners of I’m a Celebrity over the years

The I’m a Celeb stars who quit the jungle early

The main problem with Mrs Rooney is that, court case aside, she doesn’t appear to have much else in her locker. ITV optimistically billed her as a ‘TV Personality’, but you’d need to possess a long memory and a huge reservoir of goodwill for that description to hold true.

These days she is simply the wife of the Plymouth Argyle manager. The Rooneys have never been the Beckhams, and an appearance in the jungle will not change that. That said, she seems like a nice lady and I hope she enjoys the “different experience” that she admitted she’d been yearning for. To be fair, she has already met a bunch of characters that she wouldn’t see on the school run.

Not that she’d recognise half of them if she did encounter them at the gates, mind. It’s not exactly an A-list gathering Ant & Dec are hosting this year. When our first campmate, McFly’s Danny Jones, said in his intro VT that he had “a fear of the unknown” I assumed he’d had a sneaky peek at a list of his fellow contestants.

All I’m saying is, if a fifth of your opening night line-up is made up of Loose Women panellists (Jane Moore and GK Barry) something has gone wrong. Even Dancing On Ice wouldn’t try pulling that one. (Yes, I know Jane is also a longstanding columnist at The Sun — but if ITV isn’t going to mention that, then why should I?)

ITV has also thrown in a couple of Strictly alumni (Oti Mabuse and Melvin Odoom), the mandatory ITV soap star (Alan ‘Tyrone Dobbs’ Halsall), the obligatory retired sports legend (Barry McGuigan), a radio DJ that kids might recognise (McCullough), and a former pop star who had “some bad experiences of fame in the past” that most ITV viewers will have totally forgotten about (Tulisa Contostavlos from N-Dubz).

Unfortunately, Corrie’s Halsall inadvertently highlighted how far the once-mighty soap operas have fallen in the public’s consciousness when he said “People still ask me about Jack and Vera – that was fifteen years ago!” It’s the kind of line-up that on first glance has you quickly wondering whether the latecomers might be a bit more famous/exciting.

Rumour has it that said latecomers will be Maura Higgins from Love Island and the keyboard player from the Communards who became a C of E priest. In which case, wonder no more — unless Richard Coles is up for discussing the recent upheaval at the top end of his organisation, of course.

Still, we’ve been here before. Ant & Dec have worked their magic with equally uninspiring celebrity raw materials in the past, so there’s every chance they will be able to do it again.

They’ve already identified McGuigan’s comedy potential, although the “he needs glasses” gags could be seen by some as a little off colour given how well an actual blind bloke is doing on Strictly Come Dancing right now.

In terms of an eventual winner, Danny Jones had all the right credentials even before he absolutely smashed the first Bushtucker Trial. The jungle throne is clearly his to lose, but he could face some strong challengers over the next three weeks.

Tulisa’s redemption arc could prove appealing to voters — once she has reminded everyone what it is she is seeking redemption for.

Then we have the two Barrys. McCuigan could recover from his early Bushtucker Trial disaster and repeat the victorious trick that so many sports stars have managed in the past on reality TV shows — especially if Ant & Dec are behind him.

GK is the more interesting proposition. I’m not sure whether a “Marmite personality” is a thing among the YouTube kidz, but on first impressions GK looks to be a perfect example of it. She just has to hope that more viewers end up liking her than loathing her.

I’m no expert, but I’d say toning down the screeching would be a good start.

P.S. Memo to Ant & Dec: With Tulisa and Alan teaming up as camp leaders, “N-Dubz and T-Dobbz” is right there for you. Keep up, boys.

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is streaming on ITVX