David Dickinson: Celebrity for sale

David Dickinson was just a humble antiques dealer. Then Bargain Hunt, his minor daytime TV show, became a surprise prime-time hit. And now that he's famous, he finally has something really valuable to auction off: himself

I meet David Dickinson, the scary orange man from the BBC's Bargain Hunt, at his home, a big converted barn in Cheshire. When I arrive, the door is opened by his wife of 33 years, Lorne Lesley, a former "international cabaret star", who is not a scary orange but is attached to some rather scary false eyelashes. She's jolly friendly, though. "Hello, Debs," she says. Hi, I say. "Cup of coffee, Debs?" Yes, please. "What star sign are you, Debs?" Leo. "I love Leos. David's a Leo, aren't you, David?"

David, 61, joins us in the kitchen. He is as spivvy as ever – shirt with monogrammed cuffs, snazzy handmade suit, a big fat beauty of a gold watch "by Jaeger Le Coultre, the Swiss people. I bought it for £4,000 and it's now worth £17,000. I just liked it as an interesting man's item." He confirms that he is a Leo. "I am a Leo," he says, as if I'm not yet convinced; as if I think he's a Capricorn pulling a fast one. "He's got a Leo's mane, Debs," adds Lorne, just to banish any lingering doubts. Mr Dickinson's skin is a very scary orange, by the way. I don't know why that is. Maybe he bathes in Tango.

David and I take our coffees into the living-room, which is, wow! Before telly came along six-odd years ago, Dickinson was a successful antiques dealer with, at various times, shops and galleries in the Manchester area. "The interesting thing in this business is that anyone can do it, but some people have a flair for it, 'the eye' that distinguishes their choice from a competitor's." He's a furniture man, mostly. "I go from the 17th century right up to the 20th; William and Mary to art deco. I'm not a contemporary art man. I can't see anything in whatsisname... the artist who cuts cows up." Damien Hirst? "Just not my thing."

It's wonderfully OTT in here, full of the most glorious stuff – oil paintings, a little boat made from Chinese silver, a smiling gnome sucking on a pipe ("Not an ordinary gnome. Austrian. Terracotta. Eighteenth century"), a magnificent, intricately carved bookcase, a not so magnificent, not so intricately carved Through the Keyhole souvenir key. (Not Austrian. Not terracotta. Not 18th century. Total junk. Embarrassing to most. Cheap as chips. One fiercely proud owner, though. C-list and proud!)

OK, I say, the house is on fire, and you can rescue only one item. What's it to be? He says it would be the little copy of the Liberty Bell given to him by his much-adored granny just before she died. "The bell's not worth anything," he says. "It's just got sentimental value." He adds: "I can choose something else if you like." I think it would be safe to say that, in this new medium in which he so ecstatically finds himself, David Dickinson is very willing to oblige.

Actually, I tell him, it's refreshing to meet someone who adores the fame they have. "I love it," he exclaims. "I love it to death. I am so delighted and so humbled because I've got people walking up to me in the street from all walks of life and they are very nice. Lads from building-sites run up to me for a quick word, or ask me to speak to the missus on their mobile phones. I'm called The Duke, you know. They say: can you sign this as 'The Duke'? I get letters from all manner of people. Youngsters, teenagers. I've got a huge student following. Housewives, grannies. I got a lovely letter from a granny, didn't I, Lorne? She's a lady in her eighties. and she said, 'You're all right, you are. You're not a bad bit of stuff.'" I bet you wouldn't mind if Hello! gatecrashed your wedding, I say. He says: "I'd slip them in through the side door myself!"

I wonder if he's bothered by all the... ahem... teasing? All those jokes about having been dipped in tea and everything. "Not at all. Terry Wogan calls me the secret lovechild of Peter Stringfellow and a mahogany hatstand. Jonathan Ross calls me the Orange One. It's just a fun send-up. It's not like anyone is being really horrible to me. And I've realised, in a commercial sense, that all the things they say in this lighthearted way actually promote me." Do you use a sunbed? Bathe in Tango? "No! No! Not at all. My grandfather was Armenian, so I'm olive-skinned anyway. I do love the sun, though, don't I, Lorne? Whenever we go on holiday, she wheels me out in the morning and..."

"... he just sits there all day, Debs, with his sun lotion on," continues Lorne. "When it gets to six o'clock, I say, 'David, we have to go in now', and he'll say, 'Look, there is still a little bit of sun over there...'"

"... and as soon as that's gone, then she wheels me in," concludes Dickinson.

He insists, perhaps rather improbably, that all the attention hasn't gone to his Leo-maned head. (Urgent note to myself: must remember, before I go, to give Lorne a lesson on the difference between the Leonine Mane and the Bouffant Mullet. Obviously, she doesn't have "the eye" for such things.) "It is fantastic," he says, "but you have to keep it in proportion. It's just a bit of telly, isn't it? It's not brain surgery. And it will go as quickly as it came. I'm quite happy about that situation. Get a few quid while you can. At the moment, I've got so many people approaching me to use my image." Oh? "I've just done a campaign for MyTravelLite [a budget airline]. If you go into the Birmingham area, there are a thousand billboards of me staring at you. I'm on 400 taxis."

Scary.

"Every bus stop in Northern Ireland now has my face on it."

Even scarier.

"I've had one of the biggest suncream companies in the world approach me, and I'm going to be its face next year."

Absolutely terrifying.

"I've had boardgame people approach me, spectacle people, furniture people..." He is almost in a frenzy of ecstasy by this point. And he hasn't finished yet. Recently, he continues, he introduced himself to Philip Green, the BHS-stores billionaire, at a charity do. "I don't think he really knew me, because he lives in Monte Carlo, so he wouldn't see much daytime TV, would he? I said, 'First of all, congratulations on your success in the high street, but do you want to make another £3.4bn?' I then said, 'You haven't got a line of The Duke's clothing in BHS yet, and you should really consider it.'" The Duke's line of clothing? "Pinstripe suits. Two-tone shirts. Clothing to my design but in a budget range, maybe for students." He won't be too upset if Philip Green doesn't contact him. "I'm also thinking of Next, M&S. Oh, a huge amount of people approach me for my image. Someone has just approached me for carpets. I cut across the age gap."

Certainly, fame happened very quickly for him. He got his TV break when he met a TV producer at a barbecue, who said: "My God, you're the real Lovejoy." A Modern Times documentary followed, showing Dickinson preparing for an antiques fair, and it all took off from there. First, an antiques show on Channel 5, then Bargain Hunt for the BBC, in which contestants are given £200 to spend at an antiques fair and, if they make a profit reselling at auction, get to keep the difference.

He wasn't much impressed with Bargain Hunt at first. "I thought it was actually the biggest load of rubbish I'd ever seen. I came home to Lorne and said, 'Well, it's a load of old tat this, Lorne.' It's all back to front. Goods at fairs are goods that have already been bought once at auction, so to take them back to auction and make another profit... well, it's nearly impossible. I thought I'd be saying every day, 'Well, Mary, sorry you lost £90 there.' But it found its own legs. The charm of the game is that people enjoy doing it and want to try their luck."

What's the worst tat a contestant has ever picked up? "A strawberry trug." A strawberry trug? "A trug, for putting strawberries in when you pick them." I never knew there was such a thing. "There isn't," he says. "I had to say to the woman, 'That's not a strawberry trug. That's a few bits of orange-box nailed together, love.' She paid £40 for it."

I admit Dickinson's a bit of a star, with his fabulous enthusiasm (he talks in unstoppable torrents), his orangeosity, his camposity, his inability to face a photographer without going into full-blown cheesy-osity, and a vanity so shameless, it's almost fetching. "I was at a fair last week and a man came up to me and said, 'David, I want you to have this because I think you are the natural successor.' And it was Arthur Negus's autograph. And I felt so proud. To even think I could be the successor to the great Arthur Negus. He was the most charming, unaffected, natural man, who just loved what he did. When he said, 'That's a nice bit of walnut,' he really meant it."

Dickinson knows he has become something of a commodity himself now. And he knows what to do with commodities: trade them for maximum profit. It's what he does and has always done. Dickinson's been wheeling and dealing since the word go. Literally. When he was a little boy he would go to scrapyards, buy knackered prams, take off the wheels and sell them to other boys for orange-box go-karts. "I bought the prams for five shillings, and recycled them to the boys for seven and six."

And now? I think he may be trying to trade himself in for maximum profit, which is fair enough, I suppose. Last year, Bargain Hunt went prime time – "Highly successfully; we got eight million viewers" – and while he's signed up for another 20 shows, he hasn't yet signed for the other 20 the BBC wants. He's pressing for more money. And he's getting ideas. "I've spoken to the hierarchy at the BBC. The controllers. Lorraine Heggessey, Nicola Moody, Jane Lush. I'm a bit of a cheeky bugger, aren't I? I've said, 'Look, I very much enjoy doing Bargain Hunt. It's a great core programme and I want to continue with it, but can you see me in another hat?'" I'm minded to say that I can't see him in a hat at all. Too much Bouffant Mullet. But I resist. What programme would you most dearly like to present? Newsnight? Panorama? The South Bank Show? "A Place in the Sun," he says.

"And Strike It Lucky. You'd like to do Strike It Lucky," interrupts Lorne.

"Barrymore is an extremely talented man," says Dickinson, "and I can't sing or dance, but I could do something like Strike It Lucky because of my interaction with the public. I feel very comfortable with all kinds of people, whether it's a cleaner or the Duke of Devonshire. I would never put anyone down or anything."

"He wouldn't, Debs," confirms Lorne.

"I feel very happy to talk to ordinary people and bring them out," he says.

"He is," says Lorne.

"And now," says David, "I've got things to do, so piss off. Ha!"

Big kiss from David, big kiss from Lorne. I admire his big, gold cameo ring. Who does it depict? "Homer." Simpson? "Late 17th century. Bought for £75, now worth £2,500." He can't help himself. It's something he was born with, like the orangeness. Or so he says. I'm sticking to the Tango theory myself.

BBC1's new series of 'Bargain Hunt' begins on 13 March