DENISE VAN OUTEN TALKS FUTURE JOHNNY VAUGHAN REUNION
Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan have been busy planting the seed of a new TV show. Sadly, we may never see it.
It’s been almost 25 years since they both quit The Big Breakfast. Denise left first in 1999 but returned for Johnny’s final three months in 2001.
It’s well documented that their friendship has endured more turbulence than most. They didn’t talk for seven years over the pay row, which sparked Denise’s exit from The Big Breakfast.
They briefly revived their double act for a Capital Breakfast Radio Show in 2008, but Denise quit midway through her contract, claiming Johnny ‘wouldn’t let me speak’.
Jump to 2023, however, and TV’s missed anarchic duo made somewhat of a comeback, guest hosting Steph’s Packed Lunch together and becoming a Celebrity Gogglebox duo.
It feels like the stars have finally aligned for Denise and Johnny to reignite the chemistry that made them so special – and there’s an open goal for another chat show that thrives on unpredictability and chaos.
Speaking to Metro, Denise revealed they’ve been trying to ‘create something similar to The Big Breakfast’ but are struggling to get a channel to bite.
’It’s been hard to get off the ground because people are too nervous about taking any sort of risk,’ she says.
‘We’ve created a couple of things, and then it’s either two things: they haven’t got the funding to do it, or people are too nervous about it – but not particularly nervous about us.
‘That’s why we see the same shows rolled out every year, because that works that feels safe.’
Don’t count them out yet, though. ‘We’ll do it again next year,’ she promises. ‘We’ll do something at some point, for sure.’
Denise is among the star-studded alumni of the prestigious Sylvia Young school, which made stars out of its pupils, including Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Emma Bunton, and Daniel Kaluuya, to name a few. Surely her dream was to perform on the West End – but instead, turning to theatre felt like a last resort when the TV offers dried up.
‘I just was left with little option,’ she says. ‘I needed to go back to the drawing board to salvage my career. I was thinking, “What can I do? Okay, I know I can sing and dance and act, as I’ve grown up doing it. I’ve done shows. I want to audition for a show.” And I asked my agent, get me an audition for Chicago. And he was like, “Do you think you can do it?”
Denise proved she could do it and then some. She won such huge acclaim for her stint as Roxie Hart on London’s West End, she was soon picked up by Broadway, Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote her a one-woman show, and more than 20 years later, she’s back on stage, where – through several strange turns of events – she was always meant to be.
A Bit Of Me is available to download now. Tickets for An Evening with Denise Van Outen are available here.
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