8 March 2006 16:26
Ruth Elkins meets Michael Knopf
It was the reality show that would never end. But a year on it's been canned and the winner is ignored by the paparazzi, the media and even his neighbours. What went wrong?
"It'd be nice to get out of the house," admits Michael Knopf, when I ring to arrange a meeting. "I haven't got much to do at the moment." That just doesn't make sense. For a freshly crowned Big Brother winner, Knopf, 34, has way too much time on his hands.
It was not meant to turn out this way, of course. Last week, Knopf became the winner of the world's first real-life Truman Show, a twist on the Big Brother formula that was supposed to last for ever. The dental technician from Berlin spent more than five months in Big Brother: Das Dorf (Big Brother: The Village), living in a purpose-built reality-TV town near Cologne where the inhabitants became stars in a "real life soap opera", their every move watched by 100 cameras 24 hours a day. Knopf, the winner, should be a star.
When Das Dorf was launched in February 2005, the programme's producers at Endemol Deutschland thought they had a major hit. Never before had the Big Brother format been taken so far. The "TV Trumpton", as one observer dubbed it - with church tower, daffodil-framed square, car workshop, fashion design studio and working farm - seemed to have all the ingredients to ensure addictive television. The villagers were split into "social classes" and made to work for a living. The rich "bosses", who lived in a swish townhouse with hot tubs, were pitted against the poor "workers" in a council house with no hot water. There was talk of babies being conceived, marriages, divorces; maybe even a few deaths. Nothing seemed impossible. And the public appeal seemed limitless.
But viewing figures dived soon after the show went on air. By the time Endemol announced in December that it was pulling the plug, only 700,000 Germans were watching. Some say the failure of Das Dorf is the failure of the Big Brother concept. Michael Knopf could just turn out to be last man standing in a TV formula that has run its course.
But surely Knopf has had lots of TV offers? "Not a thing," he says. Do his apartment block residents recognise him? "I'm not sure they know who I am." His neighbours just push past him, he says. But then, most people would. Knopf is the kind of man you would ask to take part in an identity parade: blandly handsome, he blends effortlessly into the background.
So isn't he a bit peeved? "Not at all." Hang on; didn't he want to become famous? Why else go on the show? "For the experience," he shrugs. "I thought it would be a bit of fun."
Big Brother used to be the road to C-list fame but, in Germany, all that has gone. Nobody watches BB, and it has ceased to be a celebrity factory. It has also created a different kind of contestant from the British shows. Only one Dorf-er, car mechanic Giuseppe, has released a record. Most were more realistic about their chances of achieving lucrative notoriety. Even Gina, 19, peroxide blonde, who had sex in the village pool, said: "It would be stupid to regard Big Brother as a springboard." As the series limped to a close, a careers adviser was sent into the village to talk to contestants about their job prospects. Gina said she would study interior design.
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Independent
