Big Brother has always split the UK into two camps: Those that don’t like it and those that don’t watch it. And now that (Channel) Five have gone and bought it, many of us will wearily switch on our sets just to get angry for an hour every night.
And like the Big Brothers that came before it, this one has the usual ragtag of celebrities being linked to it before it airs.
The biggest name attached is Charlie Sheen, who was of interest some months ago because it looked like he was going to kill himself with his own madness. The whole world went on some kind of post-modern suicide watch, egging him on toward death, failing to show the required remorse until he actually joined the choir invisible. Alas, he went and fixed himself and went back to being a boring nobody. However, there is hope. We’ll use Michael Barrymore as our guide.
Thanks to the death of a certain Mr Lubbock in Barrymore’s swimming pool, he retreated away from the glare of the spotlight until he made his return to television in the Big Brother house.
Barrymore revealed himself to be a fragile, broken and at times, deeply unpleasant trainwreck of a man. It made for grim, fascinating viewing (especially the sparring matches with George ‘Pussy’ Galloway).
While some viewed it aghast, most people simply tuned and went ‘Hur hur, he’s a nutter’. This is the card now being played with Charlie Sheen.
See, Barrymore was off the sauce as is Sheeno (well, not the sauce, but rather, the expensive cocaine delivered by the suitcase load), which means we could well see someone unravelling before our eyes. Again.
And the ex-Two and a Half Men’er is understood to have agreed terms which will see him getting ?6million to simply be himself and go slightly mad.
He could well be joined by The Only Way Is Essex skidmark Amy Childs, boxer Ricky Hatton and… wait for it…? the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.
Of course, there’s nothing confirmed yet apart from the likelihood that millions will tune in for Big Brother on the opening night before sloping away en-masse to do something entirely different.
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