The peep show

CHANNEL 4 has certainly chosen the right title for the nation's latest venture into voyeuristic TV. Hot on the heels of the BBC's Castaway 2000, in which the TV camera boldly went where no TV camera had gone before, Channel 4 is about to offer us Big Brother.

If the BBC castaways - still, and for the rest of the year, marooned on their windswept Scottish island - must sometimes feel as though they're living in a giant goldfish bowl, for the ten people taking part in the Channel 4 programme it will be far worse.

The ten human guinea pigs - five men and five women who had never met before - were carefully chosen from 40,000 people throughout the country who volunteered to take part in the nine- week show. From next Friday they will be cooped up together in a purpose-built house in Plaistow, east London. Each 'house guest', as Channel 4 calls them, will each be allowed one suitcase of clothes and another small case of luxuries.

The only selection criterion was that they should be 'charismatic, interesting people', which promises some fireworks in itself.

Once inside the house, they will be cut off from all contact with the outside world. There will be no telephones, no TV, no radio and no newspapers. But while they won't be able to watch us, we will be able to watch them. From the moment they walk through the door they will have nowhere to go to escape the fascinated gaze of the cameras and millions of enthralled viewers. The volunteers' every waking and sleeping hour is to be filmed for nightly television shows and 24-hour 'webcasts'.

Two dozen TV cameras, some hidden behind mirrors, will cover every inch of the house. There will be a camera trained on the kitchen sink, another behind the bathroom washbasin mirror. Infra-red cameras in the bedrooms will monitor everything that happens at night, and there will even be cameras in the shower room and toilets - although the programme-makers, apparently, have promised that certain 'private moments' there will be respected.

We won't only be watching these poor, misguided human guinea pigs: we will be listening to them too. There will be microphones above the beds and behind the sofas, and each contestant will wear a radio mike so their every curse, complaint and even intake of breath will be broadcast to the nation.

As if all that weren't enough, the nightly viewers and web-watchers who tune in to gawp at the day-to-day lives of these ten 'unfortunates' will also have the chance to play God with their lives - or Big Brother at least.

Because the volunteers - their identity is being kept a closely-guarded secret - aren't in it just for fun. No: there's big money up for grabs.

Big Brother looks set to be just about the biggest popularity contest ever staged in Britain (if you don't count General Elections, that is, which are probably more like 'least unpopular'-ity contests) - and for the winner there will be a big, fat cheque for £70,000.

Every week one person will be evicted from the house. The 'house guests' themselves will each week nominate two of their number for eviction - but the final choice will be made by the millions of watching Big Brother. In a live show every Friday evening hosted by Davina McCall, the evicted participant will be re-introduced to the outside world, friends and family.

Once the survivors have been whittled down to just three, viewers will vote again - by telephone and internet - for the ultimate winner who will pocket the £70,000 cash prize.

The show is already looking set to be the biggest thing since Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? with the participants virtually guaranteed celebrity status. We know that: because Big Brother is basically an import. First produced in Holland, it took the Dutch by storm - turning the winner, a former soldier known as Bart, into a national celebrity.

As he left the house on the final day, 3,500 fans gathered outside to meet him.

According to Joh De Mol, the show's originator, Bart is now 'more famous than the Queen' - the Dutch queen, that is.

Highlights from the series included six million people tuning in to watch Bart and another contestant named Sabine get intimate under the duvet, and the husband of another 'house guest' named Karin filing for divorce after watching her on-air affair with fellow-contestant Maurice.

It wasn't only Bart who went on to achieve celebrity status, either.

Runner-up Ruud released his own hit single on the back of the series. 'House guest' Willem, revered by fellow participants because of his fantastic cooking, published a cook book: and Sabine, famous for her under-the-duvet antics with Bart, was offered a contract with Playboy.

The show was just as big a hit in Germany, where 6,300 fans turned up at the Big Brother house to wave goodbye to Zlatko, an unemployed mechanic nicknamed 'The Brain' by house mates because he was so stupid. Zlatko had the last laugh by becoming the people's favourite. He has since released a rap single which sold half a million copies, has his own show called Zlatko's World, and is the proud possessor of a Mercedes - and a chauffeur and two bodyguards to go with it.

Davina McCall, vying with Carol Vorderman to be the face most hard to escape from on our TV screens, says the show promises to be like nothing she's ever done before - which may be a recommendation of sorts, at least.

"Big Brother is going to keep me on my toes," she said. "We've got no idea what is going to happen, so I've got to be prepared for anything. I love people-watching - and what a great opportunity to watch so closely, tracking relationships and seeing them evolve in such an extraordinary environment."

York Film and TV pundit Patrick Murphy, senior lecturer at the College of Ripon and York St John, grudgingly conceded the combined TV/internet event was likely to be a smash.

"It's really just eavesdropping on people, which is something I'm not particularly interested in," he said. "I'd prefer something a bit more challenging. Give me Dennis Potter any day. But I'm sure it will be very popular."

We'll all know soon.

The Big Brother house guests move into their new home at lunchtime next Friday. Web-cam coverage begins immediately - you can check out the action at www.bebigbrother.co.uk. The first TV boradcast - an hour long special to introduce the characters and their first weekend in the house - will be presented by Davina McCall on Channel 4 at 9pm on Tuesday 18. After that, there will be a half-hour show six nights a week - with the eviction special on Fridays.

PICTURE: Davina McCall, who hosts the Friday live 'eviction specials' of the Big Brother show