The Big Brother reboot is going to bring back the show to the early days of “real” reality TV, producers have promised.
Set to return on air after a five-year hiatus, the UK version of the reality TV show is about to make a comeback on ITV, where it’s due to premiere on Sunday (October 8).
Ahead of the show’s launch executive producer Katy Manley, who runs Big Brother production company Initial, spoke with Deadline to set out why she believes reality TV is coming “full circle”.
“Lots of polished, glossy TV is out there but hopefully we are going back to something raw that has a hands-off producing style with a very fast turnaround edit,” Manley said.
She also touched upon what producers have been looking for when casting this brand-new bunch of housemates, saying: “The beauty of Big Brother is all you have to be is yourself and interesting, you don’t have to sing or dance or look a certain way.”
Over a 10-month period, the casting team studied 30,000 applications and interviewed 500 potential contestants.
Peter Tierney, the commissioner at Initial’s parent organisation Banijay, has also insisted this new Big Brother will restore reality TV’s supposed authenticity.
“Big Brother presents us with the perfect opportunity to make reality ‘real’ again, providing a better opportunity for an environment that is conducive to real life than many other reality shows afford you,” he said.
Manley added that the production team “wanted to make sure [contestants] understand what the show entails”, particularly given the five-year gap to the final Channel 5 series of Big Brother and increased scrutiny of duty of care towards reality TV show cast and crew members.
“Life in the house is really challenging – you are cut off from the outside world, your phone and the internet. It can be very boring at times and no one can predict what it will be like coming out of there,” he added.
Hosted by AJ Odudu and Will Best, the rebooted reality TV programme will consist of 36 episodes. Speaking about who’s going to live in the Big Brother house, AJ and Will teased the yet-to-be-revealed contestants will “reflect the UK in 2023”.