BBCH / Chicken Dinner / 10 January 2008 / Leave a comment

Chickendinner run through the threatened trio...

This is the time of year when the Big Brother house typically echoes with theatrical anecdotes and the sound of C-list egos colliding. But after last year's persecution of Shilpa Shetty, celebrities have been disinvited from a post-panto three-week rest at Channel 4's expense. Instead, 12 "gifted" kids, aged 18-21 have been loaded in to the house, although most of their abilities (roller skating! fashion design! dance!) are utterly useless to them once inside.

The fact that they are all of the similar age means that the traditional cull of the elderly will not be taking place in the early voting rounds, and as they are all quite accomplished and familiar with handling attention; neither are there any obvious dullards. Nonetheless, the housemates have had little trouble in reaching a consensus on which three of their new "friends" they'd most like to see the back of.

Brainy beauty queen Jade is [3.0] to be the first person evicted on Betfair. On every single Big Brother the first evictee has been female. To a predominantly young female audience and votership, a professional "Miss" is someone to be looked at with a harsh and unforgiving eye, putting her at an instant disadvantage in vote-winning. Her early MENSA membership won't count for much either with the skiving schoolgirls, neither will her efforts to grab attention - starting the day by leaping out of bed and singing show tunes, for instance - when she ought to be making friends or being cool.

Victor [1.4] is a circus performer with all the warmth of a young offender, who likes nothing better than to take fellow housemate Emilia - also his sister - down a peg or two by ordering her to make his breakfast to show what a great guy he is. The producers are trying their hardest to present him in a bad light to get him out of the way (so that Emilia can hook up with someone), but enough voters will probably interpret his barely suppressed violence as dangerously exciting and thus keep him afloat.

Boarding school racing driver from the shires Jeremy is [18.0] to go. He swears a lot, thinks he's great and has made friends with the wrong people (Victor), but has enough charm, and is up against two dead men walking, to prevent him from having to worry for the first time in his life.

Tags: Bir Brother Celebrity Hijack