Shattered - Radio Times 3 Jan 2004

New Year Resolutions - "To get more shuteye"

Shattered From Sunday C4, E4

The wide-awake club

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. That's what 12 contestants will long to do once they're forced to go without sleep to win £100,000. Whatever next for British TV, asks Danny KellyChannel 4 and E4's Shattered (presented by Dermot O'Leary) will be the first show of 2004 to grab the public by the tender parts; it will also be one of the year's most controversial. Put simply, this week-long live broadcast is Big Brother with bags under its eyes. Twelve participants - aiming to nab a £100,000 prize - will be locked in a house, miked-up and forced to live with each other.

The twist is this - they will not be allowed to sleep. Indeed, they will
already have been kept up for 48 hours before the show even starts. So, to snaffle the cash, the winner is going to have to do without kipping, dozing, catnapping or snoozing for almost nine days.

For British TV, this is uncharted, and dangerous, territory. Of course Big Brother, Wife Swap, Fear Factor and the rest have got us well used to Discomfort TV. But this is the first time that contestants have volunteered to do something that will deliberately cause them physical and psychological harm.

The programme's makers point out that sleep deprivation is a favoured tactic of what they call "negotiators". They're being coy; what they really mean is that for most of the last century sleep deprivation was the number-one weapon of choice of torturers. The KGB, the Gestapo, Boss and Tonton Macoute all used it; only America, with the dance marathons of the Depression, turned enforced wakefulness into an entertainment.

All of which begs the question... if Shattered is successful, what next? How much will contestants be prepared to endure to win the jackpot? A series where participants undergo unnecessary surgery in order to scoop the big prize? And a follow-up where they have to perform the operations on themselves? And will we watch it?

The answer is, in the case of Shattered at least, of course we will. After all, we all know how it feels to be exhausted; it's only human nature to rubberneck at people being forced unnaturally beyond the point where most of us just pass out on the settee. Besides which, we are being promised all kinds of exciting side-effects. The programme's in-house scientists confidently predict that we'll see aggression, apathy, paranoia, loss of emotional control, delusions, increased libido and irritability. How could you not watch?

The irony is that, as the show reaches its 24/7 climax, addicted viewers will start to share the experiences ofthe drowsy dozen. Disgrunted employers will complain about raw-eyed Shattered devotees being unproductive; support groups will be set up forthose watching the show in 48-hour chunks; and my New Year's resolution (seriously, to quit my predominantly nocturnal lifestyle and to get more shuteye) will go straight out the window.