Shattered - Heat 3 Jan 2004

Channel 4, Sunday to Friday, various times

The big sleep

C4's new reality show sees 12 hopefuls deprived of sleep for a week. Chris Longridge has the details

What's going on here then?

Twelve members of the public are going without sleep for a week in order to win up to £100,000.

What totally without sleep?

They'll all be allowed a tiny amount, at the production team's discretion.

Isn't that cheating?

Well, theg'd probably go completelg mental otherwise.

OK... Who's the host?

Dermot!

Yay! Will he go without sleep too?

No, but he will be living in the studio for the duration. He'll have his own room, fitted with a "Dermot-cam".

Wahey! Does he sleep in the...

"I'm not going to be sleeping in the you-know-what," he says.

Damn!

"I don't think angone would want to see that anyway," he adds.

Wrong! Anyway, when's this on?

It begins on Sunday at 10pm, and is on live every evening at 10pm till the final on 10 Jan. It will also be live from around 11.30pm to 12.30am, and E4 will show it round the clock. There's even an E4 support show, Absolutely Shattered, each day at 11.10pm.

Nice.

Yes. And the studio has glass walls, so between 8am and 8pm you can go and watch them. The studios at Tobacco Dock, east London.

So what will they actually be doing all day?

As well as trying not to nod off (if they fall asleep outside designated times, the prize fund goes down - so it's in all their interest to keep evergone else awake), they'll have a series of endurance tests, like a 60-minute massage.

Sounds like hell. Will they go mad?

No, but the resident sleep expert expects that they'll be hallucinating by day four.

Isn't it harmful?

Apparently not. Sleep deprivation does no long-term harm. But if you went without sleep for around 30 days, you would most likely die.

Best not do that then. Are there evictions?

Yes. Every day contestants will be given a medical examination. The contestants with the lowest level of mental fitness will be up for eviction that night.

Based on a viewer vote?

No, based on the daily elimination challenge. There is a viewer vote, but it will be along the lines of "What colour PJs should Dermot wear?

So the winner is the one left?

The finalists on the last day will compete in a "sleep-off" - a sudden-death first-to-nod-of-loses contest.