As Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway returns, where are the original little Ant and Dec now?

If you have no plans for your Saturday night, you might want to stay in and watch Ant & Dec  in the last series of Saturday Night Takeaway. The popular duo are back on our screens with a new set of mini-mes as ITV bosses put out an audition call last year looking for 'confident, cheeky, chatty boys with a Geordie accent between the ages of 5-7 who think they could be the next Little Ant and Dec.’

So, what happened to the first duo who played little Ant and Dec in 2003? For those of you who can remember the first pair who starred as little Ant and Dec were James Pallister and Dylan McKenna-Redshaw. After appearing on the show in 2003, they stayed on until 2006 but were not replaced until 2013 which was series 10 of Saturday Night Takeaway. The replacements for James and Dylan were Neil Overend and Hadyn Reid. 

According to the Daily Mail, James Pallister and Dylan McKenna-Redshaw “have since shied away from the public eye. James was most recently reported working for the RAC as a patrolman, a job he said he ‘absolutely loved’ in 2021. The Daily Mail goes on to say that “James now lives in County Durham with his fiancee Nicole and their two sons, aged one and three.”

As for what happened to Dylan, he set up a nutrition business and shared photographs of himself enjoying a beer with the real Ant and Dec back in 2013 with the caption, “It’s always good to see Ant and Dec again. They were shocked when they saw us. It’s been a few years since we have caught up and we are much taller.”

Is this the last series of Saturday Night Takeaway?

This is the last series of Saturday Night Takeaway. In a video update to fans last year, Ant & Dec said that “The show takes up such a lot of our year we just feel we need a little bit of a breather and that the show is going to take a little bit of a rest.” They also said that “We love making Saturday NIght Takeaway but reaching the milestone of 20 series seemed like the perfect time to pause for a little while and catch our breath.”