Until late last year, Noel Edmonds was just the forgotten resident of Crinkley Bottom. Now he's back on our screens six times a week with a multi-million pound gameshow deal. Steve Pratt looks at the fortunes of the comeback kids.

PLAYERS in C4's hugely popular new hit, Deal Or No Deal, don't know if they'll win 1p or £250,000. But presenter Noel Edmonds wins every day, thanks to a multi-million pound contract that will keep him and the gameshow on the screen for many years to come.

For the man who used to be the face of Saturday night television on the BBC, the deal is simple - another chance at fame. His is a TV comeback as big and as unexpected as the success of the "entertainment blockbuster" he presents six times a week.

Until late last year, Edmonds was just a memory, seen by some as responsible for the dumbing down of TV with his gunge tanks, Mr Blobby and Gotchas hidden camera stunts on his Saturday evening BBC1 programmes. He'd become little more than the answer to a pub quiz question: who was the chap with the beard who used to present Multi-Coloured Swap Show, Telly Addicts and The Late Late Breakfast Show?

Now with a Bafta nomination announced earlier this week, Edmonds' comeback is complete. There's nothing better to top off a TV resurrection than a prize to mark that return.

Edmonds left the BBC when his contract, said to be worth £5m over four years, expired in 2000, claiming that the programmes were "too boring". His departure came after his primetime show, Noel's House Party, was axed after a dramatic fall in ratings, ending nearly two decades of his dominance of the Saturday evening schedules.

"I had a fantastic run with the BBC - 30 years in radio and television, with a breadth of opportunities very few people are given. I'll always be hugely grateful for that," he says.

"But, by the end of the 1990s, I'd run out of steam, if I'm being frank. I was doing nearly 50 shows a year and I'd probably burnt myself out."

Edmonds' face disappeared from screens but the former Radio One DJ and multi-millionaire wasn't sitting around twiddling his thumbs. The one-time highest paid man on TV and occupant of the Great House in Crinkley Bottom continued his off-screen career as a successful businessman.

He wasn't itching to get his face back on screen. He turned down the offer when first approached to present Deal Or No Deal, already seen in 40 countries. Eventually C4 executives won him over. "I feel very honoured to be given this opportunity, to be honest," he says.

Whether viewers watch Deal Or No Deal to see Edmonds or 22 players try to win a lot of money is irrelevant. He's ensured that gameshow and host are inseparable in the viewer's mind, just as Chris Tarrant with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Anne Robinson with The Weakest Link.

The show is now must-see viewing for a sizable proportion of the country. Its late afternoon slot is getting nearly five million viewers, more than many evening shows on BBC2, like The Apprentice, attract.

After five years, Edmonds is a TV star once more, worthy of an audience with Michael Parkinson tonight on ITV1 to discuss fame the second time around. He joins a select band of presenters, actors and the occasional fictional character who've proved capable of coming back from the dead.

Collecting a Golden Globe for her performance in TV's Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher acknowledged that the series had given her "a second chance when I couldn't have been a bigger has-been". The same series has also seen the actress who plays her mother, Lesley Ann Warren, make what one magazine called "the mother of all comebacks".

After early promise, Kiefer Sutherland's career was going nowhere until real time thriller series 24 put him back in the first division. US actor David Caruso achieved the impossible when, after walking out of NYPD Blue in the second season, he was given a second chance a decade later to star in another police series, CSI Miami.

Bruce Forsyth hadn't exactly been written off after his gameshow, Play Your Cards Right, was left on the shelf and then scheduled erratically by ITV1. But it took a job presenting Strictly Come Dancing for the BBC to give the veteran entertainer a new lease of life on screen.

Signing up for Celebrity Big Brother or any other programme that uses celebrities past their sell-by date is considered a good way to make a comeback. They think that suffering for a couple of weeks by eating bugs, arguing with Big Brother housemates or falling over on the ice will give them ample exposure. Then they can wait for the offers to come flooding in.

It doesn't always work. Comedian Michael Barrymore returned from his self-imposed exile in New Zealand to join the last batch of Celebrity Big Brother housemates, but whether he did enough for the welcome back mat to be put out has yet to be seen.

Making a comeback after a scandal, as Barrymore is attempting, is fraught with difficulties. Ask Rob Lowe, whose acting career stalled after a video of him romping with two girls, began circulating. Then, singing a raunchy song with Snow White at the Oscars did nothing to restore his reputation. It took political TV series, The West Wing, to complete his rehabilitation, although he later ruined it by quitting over a pay rise.

Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon had to hand back his badge after drugs allegations in a Sunday tabloid. A few years later all was forgiven and Bacon's a regular broadcaster and TV presenter once more.

Bringing back a hit show many years later isn't easy. It worked with Auf Wiedersehen Pet after a 15-year absence because the original cast - at least, those still alive - were prepared to come back together.

They tried it to reopen Crossroads but failed. The doors of the re-modelled motel closed again swiftly. How different to Doctor Who. Beating the Daleks was nothing compared to recapturing old audiences. Of course, the Time Lord had never really gone away, being kept alive by fans.

Some comebacks defy logic and imagination. Dirty Den rose from his watery grave to reveal that he wasn't gunned down by the canal in EastEnders. His return was a triumph - until actor Leslie Grantham starred in unappetising newspaper stories and the character was killed off again, this time without any chance of a second coming.

The most astounding return of all was oilman Bobby Ewing's in US soap Dallas. Killed in a car crash, he came back after a year as if nothing had happened. His absence was passed off as a dream - a whole season of Dallas had never happened.

* Deal Or No Deal is on C4 tonight at 7.30pm. Noel Edmonds also guests on Parkinson on ITV1 at 10.20pm tonight.