A world within the world

Celebrity Big Brother 2009

A typically delirious Davina McCall saved the best till last – Ulrika Jonsson was the final celebrity to be deposited in the Big Brother house.

She cogently summed up her fame as “weathergirl, Shooting Stars, having an affair with Sven-Göran Eriksson and having four children by four different fathers”. Jonsson is also, reportedly, the best paid of the contestants, receiving a fee rumoured to be £175,000.

The show, back after the Shilpa Shetty/Jade Goody incident, features the notorious, the freakish (Verne Troyer, the world’s smallest man at 2ft 8in, on £136,000), the once-famous (La Toya Jackson – sister of Michael – on £100,000) and those who were never that famous (Michelle Heaton, of Liberty X, £60,000 and the ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena, £50-75,000).

Celebrity Big Brother is a programme title Trading Standards should investigate. Troyer’s progress into the house was epic. Best known for playing Mini-Me in an Austin Powers film, the crowd adored him.

The only other cheers were for Tina Malone (£30,000), “best known for playing Mo in Brookside”, who said that she was fat, Scouse, bipolar and “OCD” – attacking fingerprints on light switches with bleach.

Ben Adams, of the boyband A1 (£20,000), also wasn’t booed. Neither was Coolio (fee unrumoured), the rap star famous forGangsta’s Paradise, who said that if it wasn’t for his family he’d be “dead or in jail”.

Lucy Pinder (£150,000), a Tory-supporting model who hates “bleeding heart liberals”, was jeered, as was the Scottish Socialist MP Tommy Sheridan (fee unrumoured). Terry Christian (£50,000-£75,000) still looks as boyish as he did presenting The Word. The crowd half-cheered and half-booed him.

Heaton said people thought that she “wasn’t a nice person”, which encapsulated a common delusion – actually we don’t have a perception of many of BB’s “celebrities”. They’re there to raise , or rehabilitate, their “profile”. Heaton wants to play Roxie Hart inChicago – this is a career opportunity.

To succeed, the celebrities must abase themselves and entertain us. As the credits rolled, Jackson was mutely inscrutable and Sheridan was bellowing “redistribution” at Coolio. This may not be an entirely wasted three weeks’ viewing.