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Frozen
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Portsmouth
Posts: 37,603
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X Factor 2013: Sam Callahan CBB 11: Rylan Clark
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Frozen
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Portsmouth
Posts: 37,603
Favourites (more):
X Factor 2013: Sam Callahan CBB 11: Rylan Clark
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Big Brother will be better then ever, says George Lamb
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz...1466-23752428/
Quote:
As Big Brother prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary Little Brother presenter George Lamb talks about the show’s future
ON July 14 2000, 10 housemates moved into a makeshift house in Bow, east London, for a house share with a twist – they would be kept inside for nine weeks, with cameras watching their every move.
The show was of course called Big Brother, and since that first series, which spawned the likes of Nasty Nick and eventual winner Craig Phillips, we’ve had endless romances and cat fights between some pretty eccentric housemates.
And now the show – which is now based in Elstree, north London – is preparing to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
“Culturally it’s one of the most important television shows in the history of the medium, and ratings-wise it’s been one of the biggest shows in every domestic market around the globe,” says George Lamb, this year’s sole host of Big Brother’s Little Brother (BBLB) – the main show’s daily spin-off.
“They’re going to throw absolutely everything they’ve got at it this year and they want it to be bigger and better than it’s ever been.”
The programme has come under fire in recent years, prompting rumours over whether it will be axed after such a long run.
Even George believes the show’s contract won’t be extended beyond next year, partly due to host Davina McCall leaving.
“Davina said that she’s got two years to go on her contract. It’s evident that there is only one more series after this – I’m assuming they’re not going to be doing Big Brother without Davina,” says George.
“Some of the senior guys at Channel 4 – I read in the newspaper – said they would have signed out after series 10 but they’re contractually obligated to do another one.”
For now at least, George, who turns 30 this year, is more than happy to carry on his position as host of BBLB – which he describes as a “phenomenal beast”.
“But I think like anything, you don’t want to outstay your welcome in life,” he admits.
“It’s kind of done everything it can do, it’s achieved everything it can, and life’s about developing and pushing yourself and going that little bit further. I think everybody involved in it wants to go and do something else and open a new chapter of their lives.”
That said, George enjoys his role interviewing the latest evictees on BBLB – and was particularly taken by one of last year’s contestants.
“Lisa was absolutely bonkers – what a funny weird lady she was,” he laughs. “Very nice, very pleasant, looked a bit odd and was massive.
“She was mesmerised when she was on Little Brother. I was talking to her and she was looking around. I said: ‘Lisa! Lisa! Lisa! Come back to me darling!’
“It’s weird meeting these people. It’s weird what drives someone to go and be part of it.”
Not surprisingly, George is also a fan of Celebrity Big Brother, which has had six series during the regular Big Brother’s run.
“My favourite task ever was getting George Galloway to drink milk out of the saucer – I think that’s the best thing that anybody’s ever done ever, maybe in the history of mankind,” he jokes. “I thought that was really brilliant.”
George replaced the much-loved Dermot O’Leary as co-presenter of BBLB last year alongside Zezi Ifore, when Dermot went off to host X Factor.
But his young co-host Zezi was vilified by critics, and left halfway through the series. George is defensive of his pal.
“She’s a lovely girl and I’m sad it didn’t work out for her,” he says. “Unfortunately she got thrown in at the deep end and she didn’t have enough experience, and as a result it just didn’t pan out the way they’d originally thought.
“Sometimes you have to go away and come back a bit stronger and you’ll have a great time. But it just wasn’t her time.”
Zezi isn’t the only one to have her critics – there are more than 5,000 signatures to an online petition demanding that George is axed from his radio show on BBC 6Music.
But George is defiant: “I don’t really care. Since I’ve joined, our ratings have gone up every quarter, we’re the number one show on the network, we’re the number one on basically every different chart that they’ve got and my time slot wasn’t even close to that when I joined – so I’m not so worried about the petition when our listenership is one and a half million. It’s not a massive worry!”
The tousled presenter began his career as a music manager, nurturing the talent of Lily Allen and others, and despite his success, he admits he’s definitely not as famous as his dad Larry, of EastEnders and Gavin And Stacey fame.
“It’s done my street cred no end of favours,” George jokes.
“I was in the airport just a few weeks ago, and there were two lads going through – and one of them said, ‘hello George, you all right?’.
“I said, ‘yeah and where you going?’ and his mate was just kind of looking at me and didn’t know what was going on.
“He was like ‘who’s that? who are you?’ and his mate said ‘you know him – Archie Mitchell’s his dad!’ It’s cool, I like it.”
George believes family ties could be the way forward in this year’s Big Brother, though he insists he knows nothing about the producers’ plans.
“I’d like to see a father and son or mother and daughter or mother and son or whatever. I’d like to see that sort of set-up going in there,” he says. “I think it makes them a little bit more accountable by having people they know in the house.”
And what would be the recipe for a successful 10th series?
“I think this year they’ll really push it with the tasks,” says George. “I think they’ll be hopefully bigger and better than ever.”
Big Brother starts on Channel 4 on Thursday at 9pm.
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31-05-2009, 01:13 PM
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