About Us ThisisBigBrother.com

James · 22-05-2003, 05:04 PM

From http://www.edinburghnews.com/capital...m?id=576462003

Real Big Brother behind television house's mirrors

Michelle McGinty

TOMORROW night, at 9pm, an event which is becoming something of a British summertime tradition will take place.

As thousands of people sit down to the fourth series of Big Brother, Davina McCall will reveal the nine volunteers who will spend the next few weeks having their every move watched and analysed in the hope of winning £70,000 - and perhaps a television career.

However, there are only two sure things about Big Brother: that it will generate a huge number of newspaper column inches, and that there will be a row about the way the housemates are portrayed to the nation.

For after every series, disgruntled evictees have complained that their actions were edited in such a way as to cast them in an unfavourable light.

All of which raises the question: just who is pulling the strings? Who is the real Big Brother?

The answer to this, surprisingly, is a former Royal High School pupil. Philip Edgar-Jones is the only man who really knows what goes on in the secret Big Brother house.

He patrols the hidden corridors behind the mirrors, he watches for legal gaffes and bad language and he is ultimately the man in charge of how the show is edited.

The 36-year-old knows only too well that, as a result, he will stand accused at some point of sinister manipulation of the housemates in true Orwellian Big Brother style.

But Edgar-Jones is far from a shadowy figure, and is happy to both defend the TV phenomenon and describe the excitement he feels when his new would-be celebrities enter the house for another nine weeks of laughter, tears and screaming rows.

Edgar-Jones clearly relishes his role. As the executive producer of the Channel 4 show, he believes he has one of the most fun jobs in telly - where he gets a ringside seat in the lives of the contestants millions of people can’t help but watch.

He oversees a massively complex operation at the famous Elstree studios in Hertfordshire. Every 24 hours of real-time activity has to be condensed into the show viewers see every night, capturing the best bits of a day that can range from action-packed to dull. The house is also live on e4 almost constantly, which requires constant monitoring.

But despite the intensity of the series and the hard work involved, Edgar-Jones insists he is as excited about the latest Big Brother as ever.

"You would think the whole thing would get easier as the series go on, but it doesn’t," he says.

"We have to run around making sure the contestants don’t meet each other beforehand and so on - it’s just as exciting as it always was. You do a series and then you’re exhausted, but as soon as I hear the title music again I love it."

He adds: "We all feel very fond of all the housemates we eventually select, and very protective too. Ultimately we are fans of the show, so we live and breathe it while it’s on."

Despite Big Brother’s massive success - it has attracted almost ten million viewers at its peak - the show has also been criticised for running out of steam and for exploiting the housemates to make better viewing. The bizarre behaviour of Jade Goody in the last series has been the most high-profile case of this, as she appeared to crack up under the pressure.

But Edgar-Jones is unrepentant - partly, he says, because he spends a lot of time warning contestants that their lives could become a nightmare, but also because he says he would never do anything to deliberately exploit any of them.

"We are always very clear about exploitation," he says.

"We spend a lot of time actively trying to put people off even coming on the show, and now that it’s been on for a while everyone knows what to expect.

"Each person goes through a lot of checks, much more than any other programme like this."

He talks fondly of Jade as someone he feels was well able to cope with the pressure of Big Brother and has in fact embraced her life outside it.

"When we pick people, we sit around our office and say: ‘She’ll get on with him’ and so on, but in fact it never works out like that because we never know what the chemistry inside the house is going to be like.

"This is what happened with Jade. We never thought she would be the way she was, but I think she was one of the more robust housemates, and that has proved itself to be true since she was on the show - it has changed her life for the better.

"However, we’re very clear that bad things can happen and we feel very sorry when they do. But I have no guilt about it. I feel very comfortable with the show."

After leaving school, Edgar-Jones moved up the road to Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh where he did a communications and media degree after deciding television was the career he wanted to pursue.

One of production company Endemol’s top men, Edgar-Jones graduated from the school of "shock" television, having worked on The Word in the 1980s. He has also been with Chris Evans’ Ginger Productions, working on The Priory with Zoe Ball and Jamie Theakston, The Big Breakfast, and Channel 5’s Jack Docherty Show. As well as Big Brother, he works on The Salon, Channel 4’s latest reality experiment.

However, he is most proud of the fact his programme has become the "big brother" of a whole host of other reality shows. "I watch them all," he says. "I thought the last I’m A Celebrity was great, but I think Big Brother is different and has got a special place in people’s hearts because it was the first of its kind."

As rumours fly about who will be on the show and what they’ll get up to, Edgar-Jones is keeping his lips firmly sealed. "We’ve got some surprises for them," he says coyly. "This year will be no exception in terms of that, but really it’s the people on the show that give us the stories in the end.

"Every year is different and of course we do slightly different things to keep the audience, and the housemates, guessing. Last year we had the divide between rich and poor, but this year we have decided to create a much warmer atmosphere. The house will have a friendlier environment. Everything from the colours to shapes will be softer. We also want to take the programme back to basics a little bit. A friendlier, more comfortable house won’t stop housemates falling out, though. Wherever you put them, that’s likely to happen."

Scots have made a name for themselves on the show: from yoga-mad Sada Walkington in the first series to Sandy Cumming, who caused a storm when he made his dramatic escape over the roof in the last one. "I had high hopes for Sandy," says Edgar-Jones. "But he ended up giving us one of the stories of the show anyway."

He refuses to comment on what the Scottish contingent might be this time, saying only that there were Scots in the last 50 entrants.

As he prepares for tomorrow’s launch night, the boy from Barnton clearly can’t wait to get going. "It’s definitely the best job in telly, the most fun I’ve ever had." And the future? "I’ve got a few big projects on the go for new reality shows," he hints. "But my lips are sealed."