It has taken a while, but we can now reveal that the estate agent featured in an Ant and Dec TV sketch just over two weeks ago was … Stephen Riley, director of Riley Marshall in London.

From South Africa, he was “competing” against the likes of Winkworth to get the instruction on a house apparently being sold by Cheryl Cole, now Fernandez-Versinii.

The sketch – which Eye rates as one of the unfunniest ever to air on TV – showed Riley having a meal with Cheryl to the accompaniment of violin music.

According to Riley, the whole thing was bonkers.

He recalls: “I thought she just had a weird way of testing agents, and that everything was a test. I thought she was absolutely crazy, and I still believed it towards the end.

“She was singing, kissing me on the forehead, and she offered me lukewarm tap water with a tea bag in it, saying it was the first cup of tea she had ever made.”