From the Sunday Herald 21/12/03, Cameron, in an extensive interview, rejects claims that he is a mere flash in the pan ...
'Cameron Stout had his 15 minutes on Big Brother yet is still basking in the limelight as a pantomime pirate. But, discovers Susan Flockhart, the clean-cut islander’s celebrity career is now at a crossroads.
CAMERON Stout has been caught red-handed assaulting a bunch of children, no bigger than knee-high. They started it – chucking stones at him and having a laugh. But then the burly Orcadian began hurling the rocks back at them. Oh yes he did! The rocks were foam rubber, of course, and Stout – 32-year-old winner of this year’s Big Brother – was only getting into character as a mischievous pirate in Peter Pan, at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen. Yet it seems there are plenty of scandal-mongers who’d love to see the twinkly-eyed Baptist caught out for real, doing something scurrilously un-Christian.
“I suppose panto is a bit like real life,” he muses. “If you trip up onstage, the audience think it’s hilarious. And if you slip up in real life, there will always be an element of the public homing in . But c’est la vie. Let’s just say that if I reversed my car into somebody, it would be – ‘Gasp! Cameron had too much to drink and look what he’s done!’ Even if I’d had nothing to drink it would be in the paper.”
Regularly accused of being teetotal – along with his acknowledged foibles of God-fearing piety and no-sex-before-marriage virginity – Stout actually does drink, though today he’s sipping juice in the cold and empty theatre bar. Divested of his pirate togs and looking mildly scruffy in old jeans and a sweat-top, he’s ruminating over his present predicament. Having gained overnight celebrity on reality TV, the affable, homely fish-trader stands at a crossroads with his future forking off towards celebrity, obscurity or – if the “trashy tabloids” get their way – ignominy......
But, although he insists he never went into Big Brother to find celebrity, a showbiz career seems to be beckoning. Having secured an agent after winning the £70,000 prize, he’s already made countless TV appearances. Christmas broadcasts are in the pipeline and he’ll host the Stirling Castle Hogmanay celebrations. Then there’s a charity trek up Kilimanjaro plus a pile of programme proposals on commissioning editors’ desks. And, though he’s spent too much time tending the Big Brother hen-coop to go counting his chickens, he’s “having an absolute ball”.
Is there any romance in his life? Stout makes that characteristic sideways dart of the eyes. “As soon as there’s anything appropriate to share, we’ll be sharing it.” Don’t be misled by that first-person plural: Stout often uses the royal “we”, not for self-aggrandisement but because he seems to consider the “I” word egocentric. All the same, when I allude to the panto’s attractive female cast he concurs, adding: “The dancers are lovely, too.”
Is this significant? “Take from it what you like. I don’t know what to say on the subject. I mean, it’s no’ for talking about … you both have to be happy with the attention or the effects it has.” So there is somebody? “No, I’d no’ say there’s necessarily somebody, but … Somebody that’s going out with somebody in the media spotlight is bound to have a lot of pressure on them so…”
If Big Brother has changed him at all, it’s in helping to dispense with his natural shyness. “I’m meeting so many people, I don’t have time to be shy. I just have to forget that bit and be straight in: ‘Yeah, I’m Cameron, I come fae Orkney’. I t’s pointless being bashful and silly about it. People want to talk to you, so you’ve got to talk.”
He still can’t believe the circles in which he finds himself moving. At a recent film premiere, he was amazed when Billy Connolly yelled, “Hey, you’re the boy from Orkney!” and engaged him in cheery conversation. “We were talking about how lucky we both are being Scottish because you don’t get carried away with all this hype. You just think … I’m a welder, I’m a fish trader and yet we’re involved with public life and it’s great.'
'Cameron Stout had his 15 minutes on Big Brother yet is still basking in the limelight as a pantomime pirate. But, discovers Susan Flockhart, the clean-cut islander’s celebrity career is now at a crossroads.
CAMERON Stout has been caught red-handed assaulting a bunch of children, no bigger than knee-high. They started it – chucking stones at him and having a laugh. But then the burly Orcadian began hurling the rocks back at them. Oh yes he did! The rocks were foam rubber, of course, and Stout – 32-year-old winner of this year’s Big Brother – was only getting into character as a mischievous pirate in Peter Pan, at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen. Yet it seems there are plenty of scandal-mongers who’d love to see the twinkly-eyed Baptist caught out for real, doing something scurrilously un-Christian.
“I suppose panto is a bit like real life,” he muses. “If you trip up onstage, the audience think it’s hilarious. And if you slip up in real life, there will always be an element of the public homing in . But c’est la vie. Let’s just say that if I reversed my car into somebody, it would be – ‘Gasp! Cameron had too much to drink and look what he’s done!’ Even if I’d had nothing to drink it would be in the paper.”
Regularly accused of being teetotal – along with his acknowledged foibles of God-fearing piety and no-sex-before-marriage virginity – Stout actually does drink, though today he’s sipping juice in the cold and empty theatre bar. Divested of his pirate togs and looking mildly scruffy in old jeans and a sweat-top, he’s ruminating over his present predicament. Having gained overnight celebrity on reality TV, the affable, homely fish-trader stands at a crossroads with his future forking off towards celebrity, obscurity or – if the “trashy tabloids” get their way – ignominy......
But, although he insists he never went into Big Brother to find celebrity, a showbiz career seems to be beckoning. Having secured an agent after winning the £70,000 prize, he’s already made countless TV appearances. Christmas broadcasts are in the pipeline and he’ll host the Stirling Castle Hogmanay celebrations. Then there’s a charity trek up Kilimanjaro plus a pile of programme proposals on commissioning editors’ desks. And, though he’s spent too much time tending the Big Brother hen-coop to go counting his chickens, he’s “having an absolute ball”.
Is there any romance in his life? Stout makes that characteristic sideways dart of the eyes. “As soon as there’s anything appropriate to share, we’ll be sharing it.” Don’t be misled by that first-person plural: Stout often uses the royal “we”, not for self-aggrandisement but because he seems to consider the “I” word egocentric. All the same, when I allude to the panto’s attractive female cast he concurs, adding: “The dancers are lovely, too.”
Is this significant? “Take from it what you like. I don’t know what to say on the subject. I mean, it’s no’ for talking about … you both have to be happy with the attention or the effects it has.” So there is somebody? “No, I’d no’ say there’s necessarily somebody, but … Somebody that’s going out with somebody in the media spotlight is bound to have a lot of pressure on them so…”
If Big Brother has changed him at all, it’s in helping to dispense with his natural shyness. “I’m meeting so many people, I don’t have time to be shy. I just have to forget that bit and be straight in: ‘Yeah, I’m Cameron, I come fae Orkney’. I t’s pointless being bashful and silly about it. People want to talk to you, so you’ve got to talk.”
He still can’t believe the circles in which he finds himself moving. At a recent film premiere, he was amazed when Billy Connolly yelled, “Hey, you’re the boy from Orkney!” and engaged him in cheery conversation. “We were talking about how lucky we both are being Scottish because you don’t get carried away with all this hype. You just think … I’m a welder, I’m a fish trader and yet we’re involved with public life and it’s great.'
