[Red Moon]

Bitchier and better

As the climax to another Big Brother looms, one unashamed fan hails its feuds and sexual ambivalence.

APOLOGIES TO MY neighbours, who on Thursday night at about 11pm may have been disturbed by a loud shout of “Nooooo, somebody stop him,” booming from my flat.

The reason? On Big Brother, Craig was stripping a paralytic Anthony down to his underpants, while shouting in his face: “I am your only friend in here. I love you so much.” Craig’s crush on Anthony began as sweet and unrequited. It has ended with the ghost of Glenn Close hovering above Craig’s huge man-boobs. Bunnies everywhere are heading for the hills.

“Craig and Anthony” is the big story of this year’s Big Brother, which comes to an end next Friday. Fans have started this climactic week discussing their favoured final three — for me, Derek, Makosi and Anthony. For those of us who have been unashamed fans since its first season, this year’s Big Brother has been the best and most bizarre, though the days of Anna the lesbian nun and Nasty Nick seem almost Arcadian now.

Toxic, fizzing with clashing freak-oid personalities, each episode is compelling drama. I’ll leave it to others to debate the morality of pumping 12 young strangers full of booze while sowing mistrust between them.

It seems, anecdotally at least, that a lot more people are watching it, and less self-consciously than before. Middle-class Big Brother viewers no longer preface a comment about the show with “It’s crap, I know, but . . .” Emboldened by the acceptability of watching BB6, they launch straight in with a “Maxwell is so stupid — Saskia doesn’t love him”, and “Kemal looks better in normal clothes”.

The feuding this year has been exceptional. In the early weeks the house was split between two camps, one presided over by Saskia, a very unpleasant right-wing “promotions girl” from Surrey with a voice like a hacksaw. She essentially enslaved three men: Maxwell, a Cockney with a hint of unhinged hooligan about him, who fell in love with her; Anthony, a pretty Geordie disco dancer, supposedly straight; and Craig, who was “coming to terms with his sexuality”.

In the other camp was Makosi, a clever, witty, sexed-up nurse who lost points with the public when she claimed to be pregnant after a fumble with Anthony in the pool; Vanessa, who remained mute for much of her stay and ate a lot; and Kemal, a cross-dressing Turkish university student.

Floating around both camps have been: Derek, a savvy gay black Tory, who oscillates between playing the waspish schemer and wailing with despair at being locked up with a bunch of morons; Roberto, a hunky Italian who tried to act as a father figure to BB’s younger members; and Science, a black documentary-maker who spoke in the third person while spouting bizarre epigrams. He drove everyone mad. Derek even said: “He is the first black person to make me want to support the BNP.”

The fighting has been ceaseless. Saskia was evicted after a vile outburst at Makosi in which she called her a “dog”. Science and Maxwell almost came to blows after Science threw a bin at him. Sam, a hot chick with no personality whom everyone despised, almost exploded over a make-up bag hidden by rival Lesley. Kemal suspected Makosi of being a mole (she wasn’t, as he discovered last week). Derek’s ire has ranged wildly but has been lately reserved for whiny Irish blonde Orlaith. There has been no one truly sweet this year, except Eugene, the über-nerd. He was most excited by the spy task — he rushed into the diary room to exchange Morse code “dar-dar-dars” with Big Brother. The best non-shouty bits of the show feature Eugene regaling his housemates with some terminal story about electrical circuits while the others roll their eyes, look away or chew the carpet in frustration. Last week, Derek told him to expect the public to make fun of him. Cruel but true. Could Eugene be the house mole? Someone is.

Sexually, it’s the most fluid set of housemates ever, bearing out that old joke that the only difference between a straight man and a gay man is three pints. Maxwell was supposed to be into Saskia but after she went he seemed happy to fiddle with Craig’s hair as the latter lay, caressing his chest. Anthony, despite his stated preference for women, seemed to relish wrestling Craig in the pool.

The women in the house could only look on and wonder why the skimpiest bikini made no difference; the boys had eyes only for each other. They puzzle, as we do, over Anthony and Craig. Is Anthony naive, or did he think he could keep Craig at bay? Is Anthony totally straight?

As booze fuels Craig’s fruitless attempts at seduction, their relationship has become more toxic. The two fall out daily, most hilariously after Anthony remarked to the group that Craig looked like Myra Hindley in his spy wig. Craig read that gentle joke as a public humiliation and took to his bed for four hours. But they made up, and were soon holding hands and swapping kisses again.

Craig’s behaviour the night that Anthony was paralytic was wacko. He wouldn’t let any of the housemates go near: “I’m his best friend, I’ll take care of him. Go away”. How will it all end? Apologies to my neighbours. I fear I may be shouting at the TV again before the week is out.

Source: The Times