'Castaway' - the show that set the trend for reality TV - is back seven years after the first series with a new line-up of contestants. Thirteen contestants have been picked to spend three months stranded on a remote island off the New Zealand coast with only each other for company - and producers predict the mix of characters selected will result in some fiery clashes and saucy shenanigans. BBC1 controller Peter Fincham said: "The show is about seeing how people react once they are taken away from all that they take for granted. There is a real mix of characters. We expect fireworks and if there is a bit of romance, so be it." Among the castaways is Gemma Zinyama, a 22-year-old sales executive from Essex who says: "I have no time for scroungers, I hate posh people and have never mixed with gays." Castaway Clare Helley, also 22, is a trainee pilot from Surrey who names Margaret Thatcher as her idol.Unemployed writer Al Cooling, 24, from Leeds, says his only friends are his TV and computer and warns: "It would scare you if you got into my head." They will be joined by ex-drug addict Jason Ross, 37, from Kent, who wants his time on the island to help him "discover who I really am", and self-confessed Scottish loner Jonathan Shearer, 42, who admits people usually "hate" him.
Spicing up the line-up are 19-year-old Northamptonshire student Alasdair Humberston who says he is "the most heterosexual man in Britain", 27-year-old blonde Londoner Lucinda King who has a partner but confesses most men "want to experience her", and Bolton lap-dancer Erica Hurst, 22.
BBC producers plan to censor any x-rated antics on the show but may change their mind - depending on the ratings.
Peter added: "I know the show goes out after the watershed but we are the BBC - there will be some decorum. But let's just see how the ratings go!"
The castaways will also include Oxford divorcee Francie Smee, 56, Suffolk labourer Hassan Kobeissi, 24, occupation therapist Joe Chicken, 33, from Kent, 65-year-old photographer and former Marine Ken Rose, from Essex, and Londoner Wendie Mitchell, a mother-of-four and carer for her sick mum.
The group will be forced to live in makeshift shacks and survive on basic rations on the 100-acre island.
'Castaway' - hosted by comic Danny Wallace - starts Friday.