Since winning The Celebrity Traitors last autumn, Alan Carr admits his feet have barely touched the ground thanks to all the work offers that came flooding in off the back of it.
They include an Amazon Prime comedy travelogue series The F***It List – which he’s just finished making – in which he and three other comedians road-test classic bucket-list experiences; Disney documentary series Castle Man, about his move to a grand Scottish pile; and a new role on ITV’s hit Saturday night series The Masked Singer, announced last week.
Now Alan, who turned 50 in June, says he is busy juggling his new life at the £3.2million Ayton Castle, situated in the Borders halfway between Edinburgh and Newcastle, with all his filming commitments. “This year, after Traitors, is just insane,” he laughed. “The castle is great, really good, brilliant.
“Everyone thinks it’s a gimmick – that’s the problem – but I am living there! It’s really exciting. I love it up there. It’s got dog-friendly beaches, the people are lovely, it’s so nice.”
The divorced star has already joked about hoping to find love in the small village of Ayton, which has a population of just 600. But he was left a bit thrown by early reports suggesting that he’d bought the castle simply to turn it into a luxury hotel.
“They said it would become a hotel with a leisure centre and spa when it’s actually my permanent home,” he fumed to the Mirror. “Now I’ve been sent lots of CVs from life guards and someone even gifted me a jacuzzi hot tub. But it’s Grade A listed so I’ve had to send it back!”
Instead, his plans for the Category A listed baronial mansion include a range of community activities – all filmed for the series, naturally – while a section of the sprawling 160-acre grounds is being turned into a glamping site for a few weeks. So while the 17 bedrooms and nine bathrooms are all for Alan, the public will be free to enjoy nights in the castle’s parkland under canvas from later this month.
Announcing his plans to potential punters, Alan posted a video to ask: “Do you fancy a last minute summer escape? Well, I’ve got just the thing. I’m opening up my castle grounds to a few lovely guests for a one-of-a-kind luxury glamping experience.
“Whether you like chilling in a sauna or singing Kumbaya as you sizzle your sausage, we’ve got something for everyone. So if you fancy coming along, I’d love to have you. I can’t wait to welcome you to my lovely home. See you there.”
Costing from £140-£160 a night, guests will stay in a luxury bell tent sleeping up to four people and can also take part in sauna and cold water sessions plus guided movement classes.
He says he has plenty of other plans too. “You know it’s very community-based – comedy at the castle, carol singing, Burns Night, just really fun things.
“I think people get a bit funny about me wanting to live in a castle, but when they see what I’m going to do with it – it’s not just me lying on a chaise longue with a tiny bell,” he insisted. Recently there was an auction to sell off items that the previous owners didn’t want. “Everyone in the community knows what’s happening, they’ve been in for the auction and for fetes – there’s no mystery about it.”
Part of the appeal of his new fairytale home was that it’s got different eras hidden within its walls. “During the war it was turned into a little school so there’s pockets of it that are very 1950s,” he said. “That’s another thing I like about it.”
Having spent some time there now (in between his many work projects) he says it has been the perfect way to escape the heat-wave that has engulfed most of Britain this summer. “The last time I was up there I had the fire on,” he chuckled while speaking to me on a sweltering afternoon in London. “There was a nip in the air, I put a cardi on. Then you come down here and it’s like being in Spain.”
But despite having bought the castle in February, Alan is still getting used to living in such a grand stately home, after growing-up on an estate in the suburbs of Northampton. “It’s so funny being in there, coming down the stairs and whatnot,” he said. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself.”
In order to buy the lavish property he had hoped to make a quick sale of his former home in West Sussex, which he shared with ex-husband Paul Drayton before their divorce in 2022. It comes with a 4.3 acre garden plus a swimming pool and traditional Sussex barn. But having listed it in June, last month he knocked £275,000 off the asking price of £2.5 million.
He said that more changes would come for the property, described as one of Scotland’s “most important historic houses”, once he flogged his old place. “I’ve just got to wait for the house to sell and then I’ll have some money to spend on it.”
At the point of buying it, just a few months after winning Celeb Traitors at Ardross Castle near Inverness, he declared: “Some men when they have a midlife crisis buy a Lamborghini or grow a ponytail, but me – I want my very own castle.”
As well as getting to grips with his new TV projects, the funnyman is also trying to keep up with his returning series, which include Picture Slam and Interior Design Masters for the BBC, his Changing Ends drama for ITV and Channel 4’s Secret Genius.
But one popular returner that’s been paused for this year is the hit BBC1 renovation series he makes with close friend Amanda Holden (and a selection of power tools). Having launched with two series of The Italian Job, it was followed by The Spanish Job and The Greek Job and the fifth series will be set in Scandinavia.
“We will definitely do more,” he said. “We love it and we want to get to Scandinavia. But it’s just been so busy. Amanda was the first person who came to visit me in the castle, she was like ‘I wanna see it!’”
In case she had any ideas about decorating it herself, he claims he had to lay down the law. “I said to her ‘no disco balls please – this is classy!’ She came straight up and we had a glass of champagne in one of the turrets.”
With both of them having now old hands when it comes to big renovation projects, he says he also had to rule himself out of getting stuck in at the castle. “Me with my sledgehammer?” he said. “I don’t think so.”
He probably doesn’t have the energy, although he has somehow found enough to join his former Traitors pal Jonathan Ross on the next run of The Masked Singer, where Alan will head up a rival panel also trying to guess the identities of the performers.
He’ll be glad to get back to his remote castle just to have a rest. Now, where’s that tiny bell?
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