Last bid for infamy as Big Brother bows out

FOR a television show that is being put out to pasture, it was apt that one of the people auditioning for the final season of Big Brother yesterday arrived dressed as a cow.

Bovine antics were fairly popular yesterday as Big Brother hopefuls headed to the RDS in Dublin in a bid to secure a spot in the 11th and final season of a TV phenomenon.

Auditions began at 8.30am and continued into yesterday evening although the steady stream of people hoping to make it into the Big Brother House – and thereby establish themselves as the centrepiece of Channel 4’s summer season – was not quite the torrent of years gone by. In fact, some of those auditioning said they were there for two reasons: unemployment, or boredom.

Jackie, 18, from Belfast and her friend Dave from Ballymena, had left the North at 5.30am to make it to the RDS in time.

“I’m unemployed,” Jackie gave as her reason for showing up, adding that she’d lost her job just last Friday.

“It’s the last year and I’ve always wanted to go on it. I would watch it on and off and I’ll never have the chance again.”

Dave, resplendent in a daft hat, took a different view.

“I hate it,” he chirped. “I was bored and it was her idea,” he said, pointing at Jackie.

Liam, an 18-year-old from Tallaght, said he had shown up because his exams were not going well. “It’s the first year I’ve been able to go for it – there’s always someone on it you like,” he said, adding that he suspected the show might reappear next year on a different channel.

Another 18-year-old from Tallaght, Orla, said some of the contestants were “weird”, but admitted that if she got on the programme, she would be the same way. “People would probably be afraid of me,” she laughed.

A spokeswoman for the production company behind Big Brother, Endemol, said some people had been waiting since 11.30pm on Monday to beat the rush and that one would-be contestant had travelled to Dublin from Birmingham.

“It’s the last year it’s on Channel 4 so I’m sure there are lots of people interested in getting on the show this year,” she said.

Daniel Marlowe, one of the executives charged with picking a possible Irish contestant, said the show was on the look-out for “fascinating, interesting and entertaining characters”.

All the while, perspective housemates moved through the stages of the audition process, such as acting like a monkey (under instructions from a man brandishing a megaphone) and passing a football back and forth in the manner of someone injected with high-grade sugar, straight to the veins.

We could be witnessing the end of a TV golden age.