[Smithy]

Creative director Phil Edgar Jones has revealed that there will be some "old friends" at the launch night of Big Brother 11.

Speaking during a tour of the new house, Jones claimed that there will be more twists on the opening show than have currently been confirmed.

"There are loads of other things happening on launch night. But I'm not going to tell you them all yet. Quite a few other things, actually. We'll meet some old friends," he said.

However, he refused to be drawn on what he meant by "old friends", commenting: "When I say you are going to see familiar faces, I don't necessarily mean in the housemates.

"There will be all sorts of familiar faces, In the house... there may be a familiar face. Wait and see. I'll leave it at that. I'm not talking about housemates here. I am kind of teasing you. There are some ideas in the house that will emerge on launch night."

Quashing tabloid reports that former series winners may be among this year's contestants, Jones said: "We're not planning to do that at the start of the series. Things may change as we go on, but we're not planning on that for the start.

"This is a new series and we have lots of new fun ideas. And we want to put new people in and watch them love each other, hate each other and do all the normal things we love. We have some mad twists and turns planned because it is the last series. But I can't tell you, otherwise we wouldn't be able to do them as they won't be a surprise anymore!"