Phil Tufnell has 24 hours to go broke

(Image credit: Arnaldur)

Ex-England cricketer Phil Tufnell will be appearing in Dave's new reality series 24 Hours To Go Broke on Tuesday, May 13.

We caught up with the former Strictly Come Dancing contestant to talk about drinking with Vikings, hanging around in a penis museum and what goes on during a cricket tour...

So Dave challenged you and comedian Susan Calman to spend £10,000 in just 24 hours - sounds like a right laugh!

"Yeah me and Susan had a great fun, but it was much harder than it sounds! For a start we were in Iceland! There were loads of rules as well, most importantly we couldn't have anything to show for the money we spent at the end of the day. It was a bit like Brewster's Millions."

So what was the first thing you did when you got to Iceland?

"Well, we noticed there were a lot of people dressed as Vikings about. In fact everywhere you turned there was a Viking, so we hired a few of them for a couple of hours. They pillaged for a bit and then we went down the pub. They were quite heavy drinkers, which was quite fortunate as they helped us spend a lot of cash!"

Speaking of the pub, you must have spent a £10,000 in one day when you were away with the England cricket team?

"Yeah but that was our money, so it wasn't as much fun!"

So what did you do next?

"We went abseiling in a crevasse, that was a bit scary actually. Our guide was telling me about people who'd died in the crevasse as I was going over the edge - which didn't do much for my nerves!"

You seemed to have a good time with Susan, but if you could choose anyone else to help you spend all that cash who would it be?

"My wife's quite good at spending money. Everywhere she goes she seems to pick the most expensive thing - she'd have blown it all in an hour!"

What did you make of Iceland?

"Well we were only there for 24 hours, but it was a beautiful place and the people were great. It was a bit difficult to find stuff to spend our cash on though. Iceland is quite a small place and a lot of things closed at about 4 o'clock. We must have done wonders for the local economy because we throwing cash around like there was no tomorrow!"

They don't play much cricket up there, but did anyone recognise you?

"I was recognised actually! I bumped into the sister of a friend of mine, Nick Hancock - who I know from They Think It's All Over - in a penis museum! It was a bit strange. When I texted Nick to tell him he was a bit surprised."

What were you doing in a penis museum?

"Well, we saw it and thought why not? It wasn't very big to be honest. I bought some lampshades made out of bull's ball sacks! We gave them to some lady we met in the street outside. We cheated a bit with that, but oh well. I think my wife would have been a bit angry if I'd brought her them back as a present!"

So what else did you get up to?

"We went cod-fishing in the ocean. I caught a fish - the first fish I've ever caught! I was quite pleased with that. Then we hired this top notch chef to cook it for us. It tasted superb."

We hear you played a bit of golf as well?

"We were desperately trying to spend cash by the end of the day so we hired a nine hole golf course and some floodlights and had a game of night golf. I played quite well as it happens. But the best bit was when the Northern Lights came out half way through the game. That was brilliant!"

 

Sean Marland

Sean is a Senior Feature writer for TV Times, What's On TV and TV & Satellite Week, who also writes for whattowatch.com. He's been covering the world of TV for over 15 years and in that time he's been lucky enough to interview stars like Ian McKellen, Tom Hardy and Kate Winslet. His favourite shows are I'm Alan Partridge, The Wire, People Just Do Nothing and Succession and in his spare time he enjoys drinking tea, doing crosswords and watching football.