PARADISE LOST ‘Maybe ten will make it to the end of the year’
Eden asked 23 people to forge a perfect life in the Scottish wilderness. Rocked by walkouts and allegations of bullying, has the idyll soured?
‘Ganging up on the weaker ones to push them out’
ACAMERA swoops down over the impossibly beautiful shoreline of silvery sands and sun-kissed rocks, past ancient green woodlands and heather-tufted mountain tops. The scenery is surely as close to paradise as you might hope to find on Earth.
‘In today’s uncertain times,’ the narrator gently intones, ‘23 people have the chance to start again in an ambitious year-long experiment completely cut off from the outside world.’
The picture cuts to reveal members of this fledgling community, disillusioned with modern life, arriving for their first taste of a new society. Welcome to Eden and what may turn out to be the most extreme reality television series yet devised.
Created by Channel 4 – the broadcaster first responsible for saddling us with the narcissist hell that is Big Brother – this is a vastly different beast from that increasingly debased arena for show ponies, currently facing calls for it to be axed over a sex storm.
There are major differences, too, with Castaway 2000, the BBC series set on the Scottish island of Taransay that made a star out of Ben Fogle.
Those participants lived in prefabricated ecopods, received visits from loved ones and letters from home filling them in on daily life and important matters of state, and maintained regular contact with the producers.
The inhabitants of Eden would start almost from scratch, constructing their own dwellings in the wilds of the exposed Ardnamurchan peninsula on Scotland’s West Coast. Channel 4 believes the show’s unique appeal derives from keeping the 23 as isolated as possible for a whole year.
Until they are reunited with their nearest and dearest next spring, the community of Eden will, in theory at least, be entirely ignorant of the Brexit result, the identity of the current Prime Minister and whether or not Donald Trump makes it to the White House.
It may sound like a utopian ideal for those adventurous enough to forge a fresh life far from the today’s unremitting consumerism and the ceaseless chatter of social media.
But, only three months in, serious cracks have already emerged.
Amid dwindling food supplies, tensions have flared. The community – strangers when they arrived – has quickly split into factions and become embroiled in a nasty bullying row. The latest episode, on Monday, ended with one volunteer, life coach Tara Zieleman, becoming the first to quit, under unbearable pressure from some male participants who branded her a ‘waste of space’ and ‘lazy’.
Viewers watched the men humiliate Miss Zieleman, 33, as they also privately plotted to starve and abuse other weaker members of the group and create a ‘Lord of the Flies’ style splinter camp.
Ringleader Glenn, 35, an IT consultant and gamekeeper, said he was tired of ‘carrying the weak’ and later told Tom, 25, an outdoor instructor: ‘I propose we start “Operation Be a **** ” until some people leave. Just bully everyone.’
Hearing of this plot, shocked contestant Caroline, one of only two Scots in the group and the camp’s shepherdess, said: ‘It’s a horrible way to behave. Societies are meant to look after people that are maybe not as useful as others.’
It is understood three more have since left after finding conditions within the camp intolerable, although the identities of the trio and the precise reasons for their departures have yet to emerge. Asked about the withdrawals, a Channel 4 spokesman remained coy, saying: ‘We know people are interested in hearing about the community but we would not want to spoil the series for viewers.’
These early ructions have come as little surprise to Jo Hemmings, a leading behavioural and media psychologist who has previously worked on Big Brother.
‘Caroline said society should be there to help the vulnerable, not bully them or make them weaker. It’s quite scary really that this programme might already be showing that a new society cannot achieve this,’ she said.
‘That’s where you get your Lord of the Flies situation,’ she added, in a reference to the 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results.
The book is an enduring take on the controversial themes of human nature and the ever-present struggle between individual welfare versus the common good. Hemmings blames the abandonment of the weak in Eden to a large extent on the lack of food.
She said: ‘That is what happens when people compete for resources – they want to ensure their own safety and that’s at the expense of others.
‘If people are seen to be weaker and not pulling their weight, the rest will tend to gang together and push them out. But that’s human evolution – it happens in the animal world, too.’
The premise, to create whatever community they choose, was almost destined to provoke clashes. And Eden’s extreme isolation has intensified any rumblings of discontent.
Of course, this new life was never meant to be easy. According to the show’s maker, KEO Films, the aim is to ask: ‘Can you leave everyday society behind? What does that do to us? And what do we create in its place?’
The volunteers had basic building equipment, including saws and plastic sheeting; 24 sheep, 13 goats, 38 chickens and four pigs; animal feed; equipment for fishing and hunting; a rowing boat; cooking gear; materials to preserve food and a starter kit of food including potatoes, onions, oats, flour and sugar. They had components to build a compost toilet; medical and veterinary equipment; and seeds and gardening tools.
Each was also allowed the tools of their trade. Glenn, ever the alpha-
male, brought his high-powered shotgun, and chef Stephen, 26, his knives. They could take whatever personal possessions they could carry on their back.
Anything else was left to their wits to devise and build, including how to structure their brave new world. An embedded crew of four and a network of 47 fixed cameras monitor the 600-acre private estate guarded from outside interference by a high wooden fence.
Hemmings said hierarchies develop rapidly in new societies, with leaders usually emerging from among those with skills critical to the group’s survival, such as hunters, gatherers, cooks and builders.
She said: ‘When you realise what skills are needed, those people will always rise to the top. Stephen the cook was always going to do well, as was the carpenter, Raphael.
‘Interestingly, Raphael is not a particularly dominant personality. He has managed to bridge the groups. He’s very wise and you need empathetic characters or it just turns into anarchy.’ Raphael, 55, is the oldest volunteer and the only one who is married.
Quietly becoming the star of the show, he even had time for Canadian Miss Zieleman, who left despite the community narrowly voting to keep her as the group masseuse. Tom and Glenn felt she should be doing other work.
For her part, she described the colleagues as rude and disrespectful. Her parting shot was a graceless, expletive-ridden speech in which she appeared to criticise the rest of the community – including those who had supported her. Her departure was marked by a wooden cross bearing the legend ‘Tara – 24 May’, signalling the date she left.
Once outside, Miss Zieleman gave an exclusive online interview blaming her ‘non-British mannerisms’ for rubbing people up the wrong way.
She claimed that there would be ‘a sort of odd, grieving/mourning period of like “We were a family, one of us is gone and we are not going to see her for a really long time”.’ Hemmings is not so sure.
‘She made the right decision to leave, but she made it appallingly. The speech was quite funny, but what she was doing was saying “you’re a bunch of idiots every single one of you and I don’t want to spend time with you any more”. There was no appreciation of anything in that speech and she is definitely not cut out to be a life coach because her lack of empathy and humility were staggering.’
She said if there really were no option to leave Eden, Miss Zieleman would eventually have been ‘ground into submission’ by the others.
In a genuine new society, women, of course, would have the vital role of child-rearing. In this modern version of Eden, however, there is no incentive to procreate, which has placed the women in charge when it comes to romance.
That, too, has caused friction. Indeed, a blossoming romance between Caroline and shopfitter Andrew, 34, known as Titch, sparked a simmering jealousy in Glenn, who had Caroline in his sights too.
Hemmings feels this may have been a pivotal factor in Glenn turning on Miss Zieleman.
‘He was feeling rejected, humiliated and lashed out. Attacking one of the weaker members is the easiest way to nourish your own strengths; it’s sounds horribly cruel, but it’s how it works,’ she said.
Outraged viewers have already vented their rage against the plotters. ‘Sad how quickly @Eden_C4 has spiralled into bullying + resentment. Utopia it is not!,’ wrote one user. Before the series aired, editor Liz Foley said the volunteers were picked for their skills and likely ability to forge and sustain a community, ideally a better world than the one they have left behind, adding: ‘We want it to succeed, to thrive.’
It is understood three more crosses have now joined Miss Zieleman’s overlooking Eden’s beaches. For now, the names on them remain a mystery, but Hemmings believes others could follow.
‘They may end up with a core of maybe ten who make it to the end of the year,’ she said.
‘The knock-on effect of people leaving, particularly where strong bonds have been formed, will make others think.
‘Nobody wants to be the first to go but it’s much easier to be the second, third or fourth to leave.’
Describing it as ‘a fascinating experiment’, she added: ‘I’m not sure there’s very much of Eden about this place yet.
‘It looks a lot like life – just another version of life.’