I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! kicked off with a terrifying challenge that saw the contestants walking the plank hundreds of feet in the air.

Amir Khan, Vanessa White, Jack Maynard, Jennie McAlpine, Jamie Lomas and Georgia Toffolo were all chosen to brave a plank 334 feet up on the roof of a Gold Coast hotel.

Failure meant going without a meal ticket – and just basic rations for the night.

While the task has been included in the ITV show before, this year there was a twist.

Host Dec Donnelly explained: “I think you’ve probably guessed why you’re up here, the plank is back and this year it’s twice as terrifying…”

His co-presenter Ant McPartlin chimed in to explain that this year there would be two planks, with two stars tackling them at the same time in a bid to win a meal ticket.

Lomas and McAlpine were the first to go and managed to conquer their nerves.

But the next duo – Maynard and Toffolo – did not fare so well, with Maynard freezing in terror halfway along the platform.

“Come on darling, I’m waiting for you, come to the yellow box, it’s lovely when you’re here,” said Toffolo. 

“I’m a nervous wreck,” Maynard admitted, although he managed to inch his way to the safe zone and clinch himself a ticket.

Khan and White were the last to go and boxer Khan confessed the challenge was “worse than going into a fight”.

At one point his plank started to wobble and White struggled to turn around, pleading: “Amir help me, please, please.”

The rest of the contestants faced different challenges, with Boris Johnson’s dad Stanley braving a scary Wreck task.

The 77-year-old former MEP and father to the Foreign Secretary was dropped into the jungle alongside fellow contestant Rebekah Vardy during the launch show.

Stanley Johnson
Stanley Johnson (ITV/PA)

The pair were faced with an upturned boat with four “hell holes” in its hull, which they had to reach into to retrieve coloured tokens. When they found them all, they had to radio the colour with the most tokens to their buddies Shappi Khorsandi and Dennis Wise, who would set off corresponding flares.

Johnson gamely put his hand into the first hole, which was full of crabs, then declared: “I got bitten immediately. Bloody hell!”

The next hole contained rats and another was full of toads.

“This is my worst nightmare,” moaned Vardy, but Johnson confessed: “I think my worst nightmare would be to do a maths exam.”