[Maggie]

This was is the Diary page my local paper last night

Big Brother Street ?
Truman Show-style reality TV could be on the way


They said the reality TV phenomenon could'nt last, but as wannabes for the next - yes, there's more- series of Big Brother await their fate, I hear television executives are already planning much bigger,and more ambitious, things.

According to my sources, the newest brainwave to hit TV producers could be even more akin to Hollywood flick The Truman Show than the current 70 days cooped up inside a house.

The aformentioned Jim Carrey featured a man who, unbeknown to him, had been filmed 24 hours a day since his birth. Now, it seems voyeurs will be able to spy on a whole street-full of people if plans to make a mammoth, five-year long Big Brother-style show get the green light.

Scouts for a TV company, rumoured to be Channel 4, have been scouring the country - and most recently Manchester and Liverpool - for a suitable location for and (Frankly, frightening) new enterprise.

"it's a kind of Truman Show for five years and they are lookin for a location that encompasses a few houses," says one insider. "If you can imagine Brookside but 24 hours a day - it sounds like a nightmare to me, but that's what they are after. It's quite a big project. " Adds my mole: " They're touring the UK and all the local film bodies will tout for their business and try to find a location to meet the budget. It's very early stages but once they find where they are going to go it will ramp up quite quickly, I should imagine. "

However, as you might expect with such a hush-hush project, no-one is officially prepared to comment.

" North West Vision has spoken to a number of companies about the possibility of doing long term projects in the northwest generally and in Manchester itself," insists a spokeswoman for the region's film and TV agency. "But so far nothing has been firmly commissioned by any broadcaster. We get quite a lot of location searches and it's just not true to say anything like this is going to happen."

So who knows what's out there? But, like Big Brother, The Diary willl watch and wait....


If this was ever made I could see it becomig very addictive