We reckon if you were to put money on the first person to front a vegan cookery show on the BBC, Balance knows precisely who you wouldn’t go for: the lead joker on Dirty Sanchez.

If you’re not au fait with the Noughties MTV hit, the show saw four close mates effectively prank each other in the most eye-wateringly extreme ways imaginable. If it sounds like a British Jackass it’s because that is precisely what it was.

“When people hear it’s the first vegan cooking show on the BBC, they’re never going to put my face to that,” beams Matt Pritchard. “Never. ‘You what?! What the fuck?’ It’s all proper kicked o . Just mental.”

So how on earth did the man who once infamously urinated on Hollywood star Dolph Lungdren on a transatlantic flight in 2015 (you read that correctly), land a vegan cookery show with a cookbook to boot?

Before the madness of Dirty Vegan, trained chef Matt launched his own vegan YouTube channel once the MTV show came to an end, having first been attracted to veganism as an endurance athlete. He explains: “Three years ago I was looking into how endurance athletes were turning to veganism, and research showed me it made sense. My times dropped for running, swimming and cycling – everything I’d read was true.”

And has veganism helped him mentally? “I lost my mental state years ago doing Dirty Sanchez!” Touché, Matt. Touché.

While he occasionally enjoys the odd blowout, Matt says he’s “woken up” with age. But back to Dolph. It all started, Matt explains, when he took a Xanax on the flight.

“I didn’t know you couldn’t drink on them and it all went wrong,” he says. “I woke up on the plane next to one of the marshals. I said, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘Where do I start?’ “I thought, ‘Oh no.’

He said: ‘You pissed all over Dolph Lungdren.’ I said, ‘What?!” He said, ‘You tea-bagged a rapper, and then pissed on Dolph Lungdren. You ran around the plane naked, then passed out.’ He adds: “Once we landed I went over and said sorry. He said, ‘Don’t worry!’ He’s six-foot-seven. He beat up Rocky! But he was sound.”

And that charm is the key reason why Matt, of all people, has landed his own show. Who else could have had such a run-in with Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago and live to tell the tale?