Dingle in the jungle

Lisa Riley is officially heading into the I’m A Celeb camp - and she's set on making her Emmerdale pals proud

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As Lisa Riley approaches her 50th birthday, she's checking two important things off her bucket list. The first is going on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!. The second is marrying her partner, Al.

Ant and Dec will kick off I'm A Celeb's 25th series on Sunday night, with Lisa heading an all-star lineup also expected to include Ruby Wax, Martin Kemp and Alex Scott. “Year, after year, after year, they've asked me to do it but this year everything felt aligned,” shared Lisa.

“It's the 30th anniversary of Mandy Dingle and then I'm 50 in July and I thought, you know, what a wonderful thing to do in my 50th year.”

Lisa was signed up to the show in April and has kept it a secret from everyone except her costar Dominic Brunt, who plays her onscreen love Paddy Kirk, and Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw, who agreed to briefly write Mandy out. The trio have talked in code about the adventure, dubbing it Lisa's “Christmas trip to Cost-Co”.

“It's been the best kept secret in the memory of man,” said Lisa. “Me and Dominic were endlessly using our codename of Cost-Co, saying we're going to Cost-Co at Christmas, and it's stuck. Dominic's so proud of me.”