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Ant & Dec score Easter number one

By Andy Malt | Published on Sunday 31 March 2013

Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly have won the all-important race to the Easter Number One spot with their nineteen year old single ‘Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble’, following an Oxford v Cambridge-style battle against Pink. Only without oars.

As previously reported, the song was originally released in Ant and Dec’s guise as PJ & Duncan (the characters they played in BBC children’s series ‘Byker Grove’) back in 1994. It began to rise up the iTunes chart last week after the pair performed the song on their ITV show ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ as the finale to a medley featuring the stars of ITV2 series ‘The Big Reunion’.

By midweek the duo had taken the lead in the chart race, and the telly duo announced they’d pass any royalties they earned onto Childline, of which they are patrons. In total the single shifted just under 84,000 copies in the last seven days – 64% of the number the track sold in its previous nineteen years in existence. Pink, meanwhile, sold around 80,000 copies of her new single ‘Just Give Me A Reason’.

After receiving confirmation that the song was indeed number one, Ant told the Official Charts Company (as the duo were presented the duo with a number one trophy and snapped for the occasion): “Wow. This week has been crazy! We never expected such an amazing reaction to us performing the song on the show. To be number one in the Official Charts is just unbelievable!”

Dec added: “To get a number one single with this song nineteen years later is very surreal, but we’re genuinely chuffed! Thank you to everyone that has bought the single, as you are helping Childline, a charity that we are very passionate about”.