Big Brother successor 'to break rules of reality TV'

Channel 4 unveiled a "new kind of reality" show today - in an attempt to fill the void left by the end of Big Brother.

Seven Days features the day-to-day lives of people working and living in London's Notting Hill.

Instead of cooping up the participants in the jungle or a purpose-built house, the docu-soap takes place across homes and workplaces.

The first episode of the programme has not yet been filmed, despite the fact that it launches on Channel 4 next week, because each episode is being shot just seven days before it airs.

The show will feature an unemployed musician and rapper, an interior designer, an estate agent, a florist, a hairdresser trying to stop his business from going under, a mother-of-three and chef Aldo Zilli's daughter Laura.

Channel 4's deputy head of documentaries Simon Dickson said: "We've come to a moment for Channel 4 with the end of our best-known programme, Big Brother."

He said the forthcoming show was "a new kind of reality, what happens when you take the walls down".

The old rules of reality TV were being broken by encouraging the public to interact with the characters online and by allowing real outside events to influence the show.

He said: "This is the biggest reality set in the history of Channel 4, in fact in the history of television.

"We are not putting boundaries around them, real or figurative."

"Nobody's ever done anything like this before. There's absolutely no guarantee that it's going to work but it's going to be an adventure."

He added: "We'd like it to be a game-changing commission... I feel absolutely convinced that we're doing something no other broadcaster would do."

He added: "The relationship you have with the characters will be reminiscent of that which you have when watching a soap opera."

Seven Days begins on September 22 at 10pm on Channel 4.