WORDS��MARK�FRITH��RAVNEET�AHLUWALIA���PHOTOGRAPHY��CHANNEL��COM��GETTY�IMAGES
TELEVISION
“Big Brother…
you have been evicted”
In the week that
the last series of
Big Brother begins,
Mark Frith, editor
of Time Out and
former editor of
Heat, pays homage
to what became a
cultural sensation.
“It didn’t sound very promising at
first. The rumours seeping into the
UK from Holland indicated that Big
Brother was some odd social
experiment where people were put
into a house (which looked more like
a prison) and the doors were locked.
They couldn’t get out. They never
saw daylight – in fact, so the Dutch
press were saying, the housemates
(inmates more like!) didn’t know
whether it was day or night. The
producers would play tricks on them,
to mess with their minds.
Then came the on-screen
advertising for the British version –
the grey compound, the locked
door. This was some weird
sociological/psychological exercise,
maybe fine for our European
cousins but not something we
Brits would ever go for. “This
programme…” I announced to the
Heat magazine team in the early
months of 2000, “…will fail”.
But when the show started it was
clear we would like Big Brother.
A lot. Far from acting like miserable
lab rats the contestants were young,
feisty and good-looking. The kind of
people who would strip naked and
cover each other in paint (they did
that less than 24 hours into their
stay). They were entertaining.
But that claustrophobia, that
containment, the things that made
the concept of this show so damn
weird, was also its strength. Here
were a group of strangers forced to
live together – and we could watch
them get on or not, even fall in love
(as with Paul and Helen in series
two). Anyone who had a passing
interest in what makes people tick,
what makes them relate to each
other, would be fascinated by this.
And we were. Some shows in series
three got nearly 10 million viewers,
“Anyone who had a
passing interest in what
makes people tick were
fascinated by this show”
virtually unheard of for Channel 4.
Sales of Heat rocketed – two
months before the show began we
were on the verge of closure, selling
just 60,000 copies a week. When
Jade Goody was on the cover two
years later we sold 10 times that
amount. In the process Big Brother
spawned a new type of TV show,
one where the viewer called the
shots – we could now choose who
got the Christmas No.1 or ate bugs in
the Australian outback.
So what went wrong? Well, in
series five, after a dull, low-ratings
series the year before, the
producers filled the house with
larger-than-life characters whose
feistiness turned into aggression.
Security went into the house and
ever since then the local
constabulary took an interest in
everything going on, imposing noise
restrictions and late-night curfews.
Big Brother had always prospered
on being allowed to run free and
break norms. It was now something
that had to be contained. Even
worse was to come with Jade’s
return to the house in 2007. The
show had lost its innocence, typified
by the housemates the show
attracted in later years – mainly
fame-hungry wannabes with an eye
on the exclusive magazine deal.
Why is it ending? Everything
simply has its time. And as we say
goodbye to the
show, we can’t
forget how big
a deal it was
– for good
or bad.”
Big Brother 11
starts on
Wednesday 9
June at 9pm
on Channel 4
BRINGING THE HOUSE
DOWN: THE WREATH-LIKE
LOGO FOR BIG BROTHER 11,
THE LAST OF THE SERIES
THE BIG BROTHER
DRAPERY MADE DAVINA
FEEL RIGHT AT HOME
LIFESTYLE
SCOOP
Official:
life begins
at 40
Halle Berry; Sam Taylor-Wood;
Mariella Frostrup; friends and
colleagues all around us... It’s
hard to ignore the fact that
women are becoming mothers
later in life, but new figures have
made it official.
The Office For National
Statistics has revealed that the
number of women giving birth in
their 40s has almost trebled in
the past 20 years. The amount of
35 to 39-year-old women having
children is also on the up, raising
the average age for women giving
birth in the UK to 29.4 years.
These latest figures burst the
myth of high-flying career women
hurriedly giving birth to one child
before they are no longer fertile.
Indeed, the figures reveal that
mums over 40 are almost as likely
to be having a second or third
child as they are their first –
a factor thought to be linked with
the rise of second significant
relationships as well as the
financial difficulties that younger
people face today, like getting on
the property ladder.
While fertility experts still
agree that the optimum time
for having a baby is between
20 and 35, what steps can today’s
women take to prepare for
motherhood later on?
The Royal College of
Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
says that much of the advice is
the same for women of all ages
– don’t smoke, drink no more than
one or two units of alcohol per
week and keep weight healthy.
Dr Donald Gibb, obstetrician,
says, “These are important factors
for r all women, but
as you get older
it makes more
difference. fference.
You ou cannot
control ontrol the
fact ct that
your ur eggs
will ll be older
but ut lifestyle
choices oices
will ll help
fertility.” rtility.”
“DAMN. I HAD MY HEART
SET ON THAT PRIZE MONEY
FROM BIG BROTHER 32...”
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.