Ant & Dec Celebrate 30 Years In Entertainment With Brand New Book

'ONCE UPON A TYNE: Celebrating 30 Years Together on Telly'

TO BE RELEASED 3rd SEPTEMBER 2020

This October marks a very special anniversary for Ant & Dec, 30 years in entertainment. Yes, it's been 30 years since the boys first appeared on screen in Byker Grove as PJ & Duncan and began their career as the nation's favourite TV duo.

To celebrate, Ant & Dec will release a brand-new book, 'ONCE UPON A TYNE: Celebrating 30 Years Together on Telly' on 3rd September 2020. Published by Sphere (Little, Brown Book Group), the book looks back on their three amazing decades in the spotlight, with Ant & Dec sharing behind-the-scenes stories of their TV shows alongside never-before-seen photos.

From their modest beginnings in Byker Grove through to their ‘unique’ time as pop stars and an award-laden TV career, 30 years have flown by in the blink of an eye. They’ve also featured an incredible cast of supporting characters, including their first scriptwriter (an unknown comedian called David Walliams), Saturday night fun and games with countless Hollywood A-listers, and celebrities they torture – sorry, work with – every year in the jungle. Told through the lens of every TV show they’ve made, and including everything they’ve learnt along the way, this book charts the journey of two ordinary lads from Newcastle who went on to achieve extraordinary things.

Ant comments: ‘We wanted to write this book to mark 30 incredible years. If you had told the 14-year-old us that we’d still be working together on some of the biggest TV shows in the world, we’d have laughed you out of Byker Grove. It would have been too much for our tiny minds to comprehend, but here we are still together and still having more fun than anyone really should be having at work. We also wanted to take this opportunity to stop and look back, so that we can look forward at what the next 30 years may hold and what our renewed ambitions will be. It is our way of giving people more than just what they see on TV, lifting back the curtain on our career so far and sharing the moments and stories that still make us smile.’

Dec adds: ‘It took us by surprise that we’d been together for 30 years; it has gone by in a flash. When we realised, we began to reminisce and made ourselves laugh at some of the stories we remembered (we are admittedly our own best audience!). We thought it would be a shame to waste this period of reflection and set about writing a book to mark the anniversary. It has, until now involved a lot of tea (green for me, builders for Ant), chocolate biscuits and laughter. In this final period of writing it is mostly video calls with dogs on our knees, but still trying to make each other laugh – which in essence is what we’ve spent the last 30 years doing!’

Emily Barrett, Senior Commissioning Editor at Sphere said: ‘Sphere is home to some of the biggest names and brands in the British entertainment world – including J. K. Rowling, Robert Galbraith, Val McDermid and The Great British Bake Off – so we’re ecstatic to be welcoming the Kings of Telly to join those ranks. I’ve been a huge fan of Ant and Dec for as long as I can remember so this is a personal thrill for me, and with a turbo-charged publicity and marketing campaign planned for the autumn to support publication, plus legions of devoted Ant and Dec fans who haven’t seen a book from their TV heroes for 10 years, this will without doubt be one of the biggest non-fiction books publishing in 2020.

In this currently strange and anxious period of time we find ourselves in, it’s good to have positive and exciting things to look forward to and, with this book, Ant and Dec are giving their fans just that.’

After first appearing on Byker Grove together in 1990, Ant and Dec’s career has since spanned 30 years across TV, film and music. They have a combined social media following of over 13 million people, they’ve won over 100 awards – including 19 Best Presenter Awards at the NTAs, 13 BAFTAs and 1 Guinness World Record – and even bagged a chart Number 1 in 2013 for ‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’ (almost 20 years after the song’s original release).

Their debut book, first published in 2009, sold over 360,000 copies. They are active supporters of several charities, including being ambassadors for the Prince’s Trust and NSPCC. They were both born and raised in Newcastle.