The original reality television programme, Castaway, is set to return to the BBC five years after the first series was broadcast.
Just like before, the new programme will feature people going to live as a community in a remote destination but with some new twists in the social experiment. This time round the programmes will be live and they will be coming from a new, exotic location.
Lion Television, who will be making the series for BBC ONE and BBC THREE, are currently looking for volunteers to take part.
The people chosen to be castaways will reflect all aspects of British life: all ages; all backgrounds; a variety of skills or none; and with a range of personalities.
But all will have something to offer and strong reasons for wanting to be part of Castaway. Details on how to apply are below.
The castaways will explore the best ways to live in close quarters with people that they may not have much in common with, draw on personal skills to develop the infrastructure of the island and, in the process, discover more about themselves as individuals.
The series will be shown on BBC ONE and BBC THREE and has been commissioned by Elaine Bedell with Peter Fincham (BBC ONE) and Julian Bellamy (BBC THREE).
The original series of Castaway began broadcasting on BBC ONE in January 2000, six months before Big Brother first appeared on Channel 4. The series was a ratings hit, with viewing figures peaking at 7-8 million.
Thirty six people went to spend a year living on the Scottish island of Taransay, building their own shelters and fending for themselves in a community. This time, the location will be on the other side of the world in order to take the Castaways even further from their current lives. Full details of the location will be announced in due course.
Peter Fincham, controller of BBC One says, It's really exciting to think Castaway will be back on BBC One. Fans of the previous series will recognise it, but we've got a few twists and surprises up our sleeve.
Jeremy Mills, Managing Director and Executive Producer for Lion Television, who created the original concept, says, I'm delighted that we are able to return to Castaway five years on. It was exciting to be at the forefront of this type of programme and we're now looking forward to being able to take the idea forwards, incorporating everything we learnt then and since about making entertaining shows with an underlying purpose. One of the elements that marks Castaway out is that it really changed many of the people's lives for the better and I'm excited about seeing what happens this time. This is reality television with a purpose.
Members of the public interested in taking part can contact the producers via:
castaway@liontv.co.uk
Phone: 020 8846 2155
www.liontv.co.uk
- Is there going to be another Castaway Show? If the entry on the guestbook is to be beleived, then there may be!
- I have been for a week holiday to Harris and Lewis, it was great being around such amazing scenery again. Met a few people who had dealings with the Castaways while they were there. Stayed at the lovley Baile-na-cille in Uig. You can check out my holiday snaps here.
- I have added a verification process to the guestbook because some idiots were abusing it. So when you add stuff to the guestbook you just need to type in the number that you see at the bottom of the form. Sorry for the hassle, but the Internet is not the nice place it used to be!
- I have posted my pictures from Taransay here - http://www.port7.co.uk/images/taransay2005/
- I have just got back from a couple of days camping by the bothy on Taransay. It was fantastic, got to see the places that I have read about for years and the island is really as beautifull as you imagine. More thoughts and photo's to follow.
- Another article by Jack Kibble-White about The Most Expensive Slimming Club in the World at http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/factual/castaway.htm
- Jack Kibble-White interviews Julia Corrigan, see here - http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/interviews/castaway.htm
- Trevor and Trisha have setup home in Orkney and are running a hotel, described as The Egypt of the North they are running The Taversoe Hotel on the island of Rousay.
- New server and new name for this site. Someone pinched the castaway2000.com domain, so we are now using castaway2000.org, though I guess thats better anyway as we are a not for profit organasation. The site is also being served from my nice shiney Bytemark VM, which should be a little quicker and more reliable.
- Tanya Cheadle and Paul Overton get Married on Taransay!
- Old message board rescued! With posts from the Castaways.
- Visit the PODs!! in Scotland
- New show looking for people to go to a remote Scotish Island. Another Link.
- Castaway 2000 repeated in Australia, Channel 9 Saturday Afternoons @ 12pm
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Important Note
This is a totally unofficial website, and does not represent in any way the views or interests of the BBC, Lion TV or anyone other than the site maintainer Mark Johnson. |
Some links to relevant sites:
Gardencroft: www.gardencroft.co.uk BL@ST, people who made the pods: www.blastarc.co.uk Mark McCrum's Site: www.markmccrum.com Also try here and here Want to try the Castaway life? Try gen.ecovillage.org Ben Fogle has his own website. Check it out at www.benfogle.com ....so does Philly Page! Have a look at www.phillypage.com What was Castaway? Castaway 2000 was a slightly different kind of reality TV show, as there were no prizes on offer - not unless you count the chance to live on a remote island in the Outer Hebrides for a year as a prize in itself. Billed as a "social experiment", Castaway left 36 people (said to be a cross section of the British public) on the island of Taransay in January 2000, for an entire year. They had to try to build a community, live off the land and use alternative energy sources. Perhaps the thing that most people remember about the series was the amount of arguments that the Castaways had between themselves and a lot of the blame for that could possibly lie with the programme makers, for having seemingly selected people who were bound to clash. A homosexual man and a family of devout Seventh Day Adventists, for example! The conflicts came thick and fast, which delighted some viewers but turned just as many off. At the beginning of it's run of programmes, the show had 8 million viewers, but this dropped to as low as 4 million over the course of the year. In May 2000, (? I think) Big Brother hit British TV screens and many of the followers of Castaway suddenly became hooked on the Channel 4 alternative. This put the makers of Castaway - Lion TV , and the BBC - in a spin over ratings. Believing the failing to be that viewers wanted to access the daily lives of "contestants", as they could with BB, they attempted to install webcams on the island, asked the Castaways to talk to people live on the net and started to give out instructions as to what would be good material for video diaries. The Castaways were having none of it, however. Their original agreement had been that the BBC would put out the programmes in 2001, so the rules had already been bent out of shape - going live was something they were just not prepared to tolerate! In a bid to pep things up and compete with BB, they portrayed Ron Copsey, the gay man, as a baddie, a sort of "Rancid Ron" to compare with "Nasty Nick". In frustration with the makers of the programme and due to differences with some of the Castaways, Ron quit the island halfway through the project. They did manage to get the Castaways on TV live in the end, though, beaming several episodes over Christmas and New year straight into the homes of avid viewers...but what a lot of people won't have realised is that all the live footage was rehearsed beforehand, scheduled in advance - and they even flew in presenter Julia Bradbury to act as a sort of gameshow host. As to the fame of the Castaways, only Ben Fogle, who was heavily featured in the shows, has continued to work in TV, appearing as a regular on The Holiday Show, Countryfile and various others. As he comes from a media family (his mother is sixties film star, Julia Foster and his father is celebrity vet, Bruce Fogle) perhaps that was to be expected, as he has all the contacts to hand! If you asked the Castaways why they did it, almost all of them would say for the chance to live on the island and be a part of the project. None would ever admit that they did it for fame and fortune, which is lucky, as for the majority of them, it wasn't forthcoming! Newspapers still run stories about the Castaways from time to time, but for most, life has returned to normal since the project closed on January 1st, 2001. |