What’s subsequent for John Barrowman? Plans revealed after comeback flop

John Barrowman is set to plough ahead with his grand comeback, despite lasting just 32 minutes during his stint on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.

The Doctor Who star, 57, had been tipped to relaunch his TV career with an appearance on the gruelling reality show, but was branded ‘pathetic’ by viewers after opting to withdraw from the challenge on Sunday. 

It’s now been revealed that John’s next plans will include a tour of the UK, which is being tipped as ‘an intimate look at John’s life and career in song.’

The West End performer will perform at venues including Shrewsbury, Chelmsford, Crawley, Exeter and Newcastle.

The tour, which is set to kick off in Basildon on October 11, will continue to a string of other cities in February and March 2025, including Weston-Super-Mare, Swansea and Aberdeen.

John first announced plans to head back on tour on Instagram in March, telling his followers: ‘From the theatre to television, from the TARDIS to Torchwood, Anything Goes to Arrow and the UK to the USA, I’ll share tales straight from the horses mouth.

‘Stories and the gossip all happening around my heartfelt renditions of some of your favourite songs from my albums.’

John has also been a fixture at Comic Con events for years, and took to the stage at Oz Comic Con in Sydney over the weekend, and he’s set to appear at Comic Con Liverpool in November.

The star had hoped to kickstart his comeback when he joined the lineup for Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.

But when the first episode hit screens on Sunday, it was revealed that John quit the show just 32 minutes after arriving at base camp, and was seen vomiting before throwing in the towel

In an interview with The Sun, John claimed his sickness was a result of being ‘made’ to eat ‘vile tofu’ after being offered no other food.

John, who is not a vegetarian or vegan, said: ‘I would never eat tofu in my life, but you’re so hungry, you just eat it’.  

The motion sickness sufferer was then forced to endure a two-hour car journey for the task, leaving him green around the gills. 

He said: ‘Then it was projectile vomit everywhere and the tofu came up. I thought “I’m not going to make myself ill or hurt myself in order to try to prove something that I don’t need to prove”‘.

‘And it was seriously me going “I am completely comfortable with who I am” I’m completely a happy person. We’ve all got our issues and problems, but I’ve made a mistake’.

John, who opened up about the flashing allegations he faced in 2021 that led to his axe from the DOI judging panel while on the show, began to vomit shortly after arriving at base camp for the first challenge. 

After the contestants put on their army uniforms the actor began heaving and declared ‘I’m out’.

Asked by expert  Mark Billingham if he would like to see a doctor, John said: ‘No, I’m done. I just, it’s not for me, I know who I am and what I’m about, it’s not for me’.

As the voice over said: ‘After only 32 minutes on base, number 13 John is the first recruit to leave the course.’

Viewers had little sympathy for the actor and taking to X branding him ‘pathetic’ and a ‘diva’.

Writing:  ‘Never seen anything more pathetic in my life. I bet you thought this might be a shot at redemption as well. Whoopsie!’: ‘Pathetic from John Barrowman’: ‘John Barrowman 32 minutes’: ‘FFS John Barrowman, I knew you were a diva, didn’t think you were a huge wuss as well, certainly done yourself no favours there’.

‘I hope John Barrowman wasn’t paid for that pathetic effort‘: ‘Can’t believe John Barrowman quits the only show that was actually willing to give him a job after just 32 minutes. What a prat’.

During the episode, John addressed the accusations that he had repeatedly exposed himself on the set of the BBC One sci-fi series Doctor Who and its sister show Torchwood.

He said: ‘The press made the allegation that I was going around putting my d**k on everybody’s shoulders.

‘Having that happen to me ruined me, but this course is going to help me push through this and I want people to see the kind of person that I really am.’ 

He later added: ‘On Doctor Who and Torchwood, I had to do a lot of nude scenes. If I were being stupid, I would do something stupid.’

John previously revealed that he contemplated suicide after being accused of flashing cast members on the sets of Doctor Who. 

He said his world came crashing down and his career in TV came to a standstill after the claims emerged in 2021. 

John, who is set to star in the upcoming series of Celebrity SAS after a long hiatus from screens, said he spiralled into a deep depression, so bad he contemplated suicide. 

‘I had thoughts of suicide, going out and trying to do certain things and harm myself, and a couple of times debating how I was going to kill myself. The thing was I couldn’t do it because of my family and friends,’ John told The Mirror. 

John issued a public apology in May 2021 after the claims emerged he had flashed cast members on the sets of Doctor Who, where he began playing Captain Jack Harkness in 2005 and spin-off series Torchwood a year later.

The actor described his actions as ‘tomfoolery’ that he’d ‘never do now’, but slammed critics, who he said sought to portray his actions as ‘sexual harassment’. 

He was later dropped from Dancing On Ice after pressure from figures including the Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke, who said it would be wrong to include him on a ‘family show’ as this could be soon as ‘condoning’ his past behaviour.

Despite being sacked from Dancing On Ice, John controversially still appeared on All Star Musicals, another ITV show. He was also forced to cancel his Centre Stage tour due to poor ticket sales.  

He said: ‘Something that was a stupid prank that was done amongst cast members and who the cast members never complained, never said anything about, but a narrative was created that apparently I was going around and throwing my c**k on people’s shoulders, which was not true.

‘We had pranks, but they were amongst the company members and we all laughed and had fun. I was being, in a sense, publicly punished and humiliated for those things and also being cancelled.’ 

John said it made him devastated to be called a ‘sexual harasser’ and insisted he ‘would never do anything to harm a woman or a man or anybody, transgender, you name it’.