Flashback to 2000: When Newport builder Craig shot to fame in Big Brother
A group of people locked down together, unable to lead normal lives and having to find ways of rubbing along with each other in confinement for 64 days.
And the cameras were watching their every move.
Twenty years ago television screens were hit by a social phenomenon, an experimental show in which the goings-on of housemates who didn't do much could become gripping viewing.
Big Brother from Channel 4 came to the screens for the first time in the summer of 2000 and built up a cult following, particularly among younger viewers, and set a template for a host of fly-on-the-wall reality shows which have followed in its wake.
Although basically a game show with contestants being voted off, the hothouse atmosphere of the Big Brother house magnified the importance of incidents leading to a famous climax on August 17 when "Nasty Nick" was essentially hauled before a kangaroo court to be confronted by the other contestants and accused of cheating.
"Nasty Nick" – Nick Bateman – is probably one of only two of those original contestants that most people would readily be able to name now. The other was his principal accuser, Newport builder Craig Phillips.
Nick's "crime" had been in trying to influence the others in who would get voted out by writing secret notes. He had also made the mistake of being caught.
So, on Day 35, it was time for a showdown.
As the contestants assembled Craig told him: “I'm very disappointed in yourself. I not only feel but am quite positive and have evidence that you’re plotting a very dirty plan on everybody in here to vote against each other to divert from you... How can you be so two-faced?"
Poor Nick had been rumbled. He was whisked away afterwards from the east London house in a blacked-out car and, game show or not, was elevated to the status of a national hate figure.
Broadcast magazine voted it one of the 50 best ever television moments. It made the front page of every national tabloid newspaper. Viewing figures on the internet, which was still relatively new, hit 10 million, the most traffic ever seen live on one website.
It was a turning point both for the show, which was cemented as a monster ratings hit for the channel, and for 28-year-old Liverpudlian Craig.
Before the confrontation with "Nasty Nick" he had not really been on the viewers' radar. But that piece of television gold transformed him into a household name overnight. His life was about to be changed forever.
He was to go on to be voted the first winner of Big Brother and immediately announced that he was giving his £70,000 prize money to fund a heart and lung transplant for his friend Jo Harris, who had Down’s Syndrome.
Big Brother was a springboard into the world of television presenting and he went on to build a successful media career alongside his building and development company.
Craig had come to Shropshire at the age of 18, and his mother and stepfather ran the Shakespeare Inn at Newport.
Sadly Jo died from an infection in 2008 aged 25 without having had a transplant, and money raised for the A Heart For Jo appeal was given to various charities.
Speaking to Sky News a few months ago during the peak of the coronavirus lockdown, Craig reflected on the similarities between that and what it was like being in the Big Brother House.
“It forced us to make friends because most of the people in there I generally wouldn’t have hung around with. We became friends because of the circumstances of living in the house. I’ve stayed friends with a few and even went to visit Nick in Australia,” he said.
The Big Brother experience, he felt, had made him more disciplined and able to cope with the coronavirus lockdown.
He added: "Lockdown teaches you to enjoy the real things that matter most, like friends and family and your house around you.”
After the pioneering show, future series of Big Brother were to spawn other celebrities, like Jade Goody, Chantelle Houghton, and Chanelle Hayes.
But apart from Craig and Nick, do you remember any of the 10 (11 in the end) original contestants?
The others were: third-placed Darren Ramsay, Claire Strutton (who replaced the evicted Nick), runner up Anna Nolan, Melanie Hill, Tom McDermott, Andy Davidson, Caroline O'Shea, Nichola Holt, and Sada Walkington (who was the first person ever booted out of a Big Brother house).
