The Noel Edmonds comeback is not as surprising as it would be for, say, David Icke to re-emerge as a deeply normal presenter of On the Ball, or for Jeffrey Archer to preside over a taskforce restoring public faith in the peerage. But it isn’t far off.

For two decades Edmonds was arguably Britain’s most successful television “personality”, unarguably its best paid, even boasting his own theme parks where “lucky” punters met his characters, Mr Blobby and Hissing Sid. A generation grew up with Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, The Late Late Breakfast Show and House Party.

Edmonds’s very ubiquity meant that when the BBC yanked him off air in 1999, many felt they had seen enough of him — for life. He induced the groans that now only Graham Norton can inspire. Chuck in the death of a contestant in a bungee stunt and a boy killed in a helicopter crash on a flight sponsored by an Edmonds charity (oh, and last year’s dumping of Noel by Mrs Edmonds amid lurid tabloid claims) and it is fair to say life was not too sunny down at Crinkley Bottom.

It is now. Last week Edmonds was nominated for a Bafta for his television comeback presenting a game show, Deal or No Deal. Satisfyingly, this has been a “below the radar” hit, largely ignored by a press that has given him many a mauling. The game, in which contestants guess how much money is hidden in boxes, attracts up to 5m viewers. Now it has won a berth on Saturday night, Edmonds’ home.

He claims his agent is “knee deep” in offers; after this interview, Michael Parkinson awaits. “It is not a case of ‘I told you so’,” he insists “but Jesus, I’m grateful. It is fantastic being me at the moment.” And it is a long time since Edmonds could say that.

“I’m told I’m an overnight success after 37 years,” he smiles. “Normally my flight from Nice (where he partly lives with French fancy Marjan Simmons is anonymous but this morning the pilot waited for an autograph and a mother told me her children nagged her so much to get back from school to watch the show she was done for speeding.

“And the brilliant thing is I didn’t have to go into the jungle or masturbate a pig.”

Who would have thought that in 2006 there would be a buzz about Edmonds? When a bog standard rock god is being interviewed, Mark Borkowski, doyen of celebrity PRs, sends as a minder one of his stable of Brazilian honeys; but for the newly hot Edmonds, Borkowski comes himself.

Nothing fazes Edmonds any more — even the bellboy at the Hilton hotel where we meet telling us how he helped Paris Hilton into her bedroom after she collapsed drunk in the corridor recently.

“Should you really say that in front of one of the most dangerous journalists on Fleet Street?” cackles Edmonds. (We have history, Noel and I — he once wrote a long, anguished letter accusing me of penning the most hurtful article ever published about him.) To his credit he betrays no bitterness about it now, only bonhomie.

Edmonds, 57, looks very like he did at 27: the same swept back collar length hair and that weird beard: only his pointy blue snakeskin slip-ons hint at new ambitions. His eyes are a less bullish blue. Despite his manic energy on screen, off it Edmonds is a fragile and rather touchy fellow. At present he is exercised by claims in a tabloid that he is an on-set tyrant and tells me he has assembled a long list of colleagues to refute these tall tales.

“On the aeroplane to Nice on Saturday people were reading the complimentary Daily Mail (which contained the latest robust profile). I wanted to seize the cabin crew microphone and go through the article reading out what was untrue.” It claimed that before going live he would ring his now former wife Helen and swear at her.

“Everybody knows you can’t even use a mobile in a studio,” says Edmonds. “I don’t recognise the person they described.” Other reports about the end of his 18-year marriage claimed Edmonds hired builders to divide up the 36-room Devon stately home the couple shared. “When that came out we had already sold the house. I was also accused of spying on my wife with CCTV — the cameras were to spot burglars.”