Im A Celeb South Africa: Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard Leaves Norfolk for Game Reserve
On a misted morning in the Norfolk countryside, a quiet bungalow that Beverley Callard called home until recently sits with packed suitcases waiting. Beverley Callard, best known for playing Liz McDonald for more than 30 years, will head to a South African game reserve to compete in im a celeb south africa, swapping hedgerows for open veldt and routine for the filmed trials of a pre-recorded celebrity special.
Im A Celeb South Africa — what is the setting and who is hosting?
The series was shot in South Africa and is being presented in a pre-recorded format. The hosting duo Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly will front the episodes. The programme will stream on weeknights beginning April 6, with a live final broadcast from London on April 24 to determine the winner.
How does this fit into Beverley Callard’s recent life and career?
Beverley Callard is trading her Norfolk address for the game reserve after a period of movement between homes and work. She moved to Loddon in 2022 from Salford, briefly relocated to Ireland to join the cast of a long-running Irish drama, then returned to the east in February to receive cancer treatment at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. She first shared news of a breast cancer diagnosis while appearing on the Late Late Show in Ireland on February 6.
The actress is no stranger to the programme: she first took part in the show in 2020, the year the series was held in a Welsh castle because of the coronavirus pandemic. Her return for the all-stars edition takes place in a markedly different environment — a South African game reserve captured earlier in the year — and will be seen by viewers on the April streaming run.
What are the human and social angles behind this casting?
At its simplest, the decision for a well-known soap performer to join an all-stars line-up is both a career move and a personal step. For Beverley Callard, the choice follows a period of treatment and travel between England and Ireland for work. The move from a rural Norfolk life to a high-profile televised competition highlights how celebrity programmes can intersect with private health journeys and career momentum.
Her history on the show — first in the 2020 castle series and now in a full South African production — underscores another pattern: performers returning to formats that once put them in the public eye often do so with new personal context and visibility. Presentation by a familiar hosting pair frames the series as continuity for viewers even as the production’s location and stakes shift.
What is being done to present the series responsibly is visible in the production choices: the episodes were pre-recorded in South Africa, the timeline of filming is set, and the broadcast run is scheduled to culminate with a live final in London. Those arrangements create space for editing and pacing around participants’ circumstances while delivering a scheduled television event.
Back in Norfolk, preparations echo elsewhere: a home once at the centre of daily routine readies itself for an absence, and a community that knows her work watches a familiar face prepare for a new challenge. The series will offer viewers a close-up of a performer who has spent more than three decades inhabiting a character and, now, a contestant.
When the cameras roll and the South African reserve comes into view, the packed bags and quiet Norfolk rooms will carry new meaning — a chapter in an ongoing story of public performance, personal health, and professional resilience. im a celeb south africa will bring Beverley Callard back into a format she knows well, and audiences will see how that return resonates against the quieter scenes she has left behind.
