Entertainment

Phillip Schofield explains Holly Willoughby’s absence from This Morning

She has been replaced by Davina McCall.
She has been replaced by Davina McCall. She has been replaced by Davina McCall.

Davina McCall has replaced Holly Willoughby on This Morning for the day.

The former Big Brother star stepped in for the regular host after she took a day off to take her children back to school.

Willoughby is mother to three children – Belle, nine, Harry, 11 and Chester, five – with husband Daniel Baldwin.

Opening the show, McCall said: “Hi, I’m here. Holly’s doing something lovely today.”

Willoughby’s regular co-host Phillip Schofield added: “Holly is taking her children to school today, they are all going back and it’s a sort of staggered affair and so quite complicated and I imagine, probably in houses up and down the country, quite high emotion. So she’s taking the kids to school, as she should.”

Addressing if the duo have ever presented the show together, McCall said: “I’ve been a guest, I’ve pranced around and shaked my bottom in your face.”

She said to Schofield: “I’m very nervous but I will just follow you. You know what you’re doing, you’ve done it before, it’s all OK.”

He replied: “Anyone who watches regularly might disagree with that.”

Later in the show the pair were left in hysterics when Josie Gibson rode a rollercoaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach to investigate the new rules at theme parks.

Gibson said: “I tell you what, I haven’t had a ride for such a long time. It’s about time I got the adrenaline pumping actually.”

She added: “Since I had a baby I’m scared of everything, absolutely everything.”

The hosts looked on as Gibson hurtled round Icon, which accelerates to 88km per hour in two seconds, while screaming as her face mask slipped down over her chin and up over her eyes.

As the ride reached its crescendo, she shrieked: “I quit! I quit!”