One House

One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor.
The words punched themselves onto the screen like first slamming into a face.
Frantic, angry rock music accompanied the post punk graphics and the grainy images supporting them.
A spinning hot-head camera.
A barbed wire fence.
A snarling guard dog.
A girl with her back to the camera removing her bra.
A close -up of a mouth , screaming and contorted with rage.
More big guitar noise, More jagged graphics.
Nobody watching could be in the slightest doubt that this was telly from the hip and for the hip. The message was clear: boring people should seek their entertainment elsewhere, but if you happened to be young, bigged up and mad for it, this was the show for you.
Nine weeks. No excuses. No escape.
House. Arrest.
A final blast of swooping feedback- laden guitar and the credits were over.For one last moment the Peeping Tom house was empty and all was calm. A big, bright friendly space, with a wide tiles living area , pleasant communal rooms bedrooms, stainless steel washrooms and showers and a swimming pool in the garden.
The front door opened and ten young people spilled through it, spreading out into the large open plan living area. Ten people who, the pre-publicity had assured the nation, had never met before in their lives.
They whooped, they shrieked, they hugged, they say 'Wicked! over and over again. Some went into the bedrooms and jumped up and down on the beds, others did chin-ups on the door frames, one or two stood back a little and watched, but everybody seemed to be of the opinion tat the adventure of a lifetime had just begun and they simply could not be starting off on it with a more wicked crew.
Having clearly established the fact that the viewing public were in the company of a party crowd, the camera began to introduce the housemates individually.
The first to be picked out was an impossibly handsome young man with soft puppy eyes, boyish features and long shoulder-length hair. He wore a big black coat and carried a guitar. A graphic stamped itself across the man's face, letters made out of bricks, like prison walls.
David. Real job: actor. Star sign : Aries
From the book 'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton