Comedian Ross Noble bitten by shark while filming ITV reality show

Comedian Ross Noble was bitten while filming ITV’s Shark! in the Caribbean. But the Geordie funnyman, a regular on Have I Got News for You, said he didn’t blame the shark in question for wanting to see how he tasted. “Potentially, depending on what got caught on the camera, you could see me get nibbled by a shark,” he explained..

“The only way a shark has got to find out what another thing is, is to have a little nibble of it and see. I've seen a lot of shark documentaries. The big thing that I realised is, it's not Jaws, sharks don’t attack people. I always knew that when they attacked surfers, it's because they think they're seals.

“I think a lot of people would just instantly think, ‘Oh, sharks, danger, big teeth.’ I've never really had that fear. I watch a lot of telly, so I've seen a lot of shark documentaries.”

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Ross, 49, said he and the other celebs taking part felt like the “idiot mate” of Sir David Attenborough as they swam in the seas of Bimini and realised that the sharks were far bigger than he’d previously thought.

“Imagine a David Attenborough documentary, right? But Attenborough has got an idiot mate who has just jumped in with the animals, so we can see how big they are and you can learn something about these creatures along the way.

“Basically, if you love a beautiful nature documentary but also like seeing how big things are against Dougie from McFly, you’ll love it.”

The comic admitted he’d initially signed up purely for the free holiday. "I've got a feeling that quite a few of us looked at it and just went, ‘It's three weeks in the Bahamas, yes!’ And then we read the rest of the information. That's whatMichael Caine used to do when he was picking films. He used to go, ‘It's in the Bahamas. I'll do it.’”

Describing Dougie Poynter as the “perfect measuring stick” for sharks, he laughed: “I now measure everything in Dougie from McFly. I now go, ‘How big's an elephant?’ And I say, ‘At least five Dougie from McFly’s’.”

He said his biggest surprise had been just how big the apex ocean predators actually were. “In nature documentaries, there's never any scale because they're just in the vast expanse of blue and usually they're either on their own or they're swimming next to other sharks that are a similar size,” he told the Mirror. “The difference is when you're down there and there's people next to a giant shark, that makes you realise just how massive they are. You could watch a hundred nature documentaries and not get it.”

Dougie, 37, said that making the programme had changed him forever. “It’s confirmed that I really should do more stuff with nature,” he explained. “I came back and it just hit me so hard that I'm not still out there doing it. I think I just want to do nature stuff for the rest of my life, in any sort of capacity. Any trip I do, or holiday or TV show, I hope it has some sort of nature element in it, because that's what I'm so happy doing. I'm so content, it's almost like I switch into this other person and any other worries completely disappear.

“I feel connected, back to what I think we actually are, just creatures of Earth. Without sounding cheesy, I’m sharing the planet with all these other things that are way more fascinating than myself.”

He said he didn’t feel too frightened, despite the danger. “There were a couple of hairy moments, but I was never really scared,” he insisted. “Sharks are villainised and everyone hates them compared to lions that get Disney movies made out of them. Sharks are not as cute as Simba and Mufasa, but I'd quite happily dive with Tiger sharks over running with lions.”

But Amandaland star Lucy Punch has no qualms admitting she’d found it “very scary”. “It feels dangerous and they’re huge and intimidating. But I was surprised at how exhilarating and sometimes even how peaceful the shark encounters were,” she said.

The comedy acrtress found that Countdown’s Rachel Riley helped her overcome her fears. “I panicked before the first proper dive. Lovely Rachel reassured me that fear and excitement share the same physiological reaction, which I reminded myself of regularly for the rest of the trip - I’m not terrified, I’m thrilled!”

Call the Midwife’s Helen George said it wasn’t the wildlife she found difficult, but the water. “I am quite scared of swimming and I started to think, is this a good idea? Let alone the sharks. But I really wanted to push myself and it sounded like such an interesting thing to be part of.”

For the five-part series the celebs were flown to the sanctuary in the Bahamas, home to around 10 different species of shark. Once there, they took the plunge together alongside Hammerheads, Bull sharks and Tiger sharks. There is no elimination process in the series, but the dives got progressively harder, with each involving a bigger and tougher breed of shark.

- Shark: Celebrity Infested Waters, Monday 14th July, 9pm, ITV1/ITVX