A group of 10 students are staging a live Big Brother event as part of an arts festival.

The St Peter's College students will spend 12 hours in a room fitted with live cameras while the public watch them on the college television.

They will undergo various challenges and will be evicted one at a time by the audience, in the style of Channel 4 reality TV show Big Brother, which starts a new series on Friday, 23 May.

Organisers say they have been criticised by college authorities for staging the event, which takes place on Saturday, 24 May, as part of the Open Arts Surgery festival.

Student Andrew Stubbings said: "We have come across some stick from college authorities.

"They have criticised the artistic value. There's a feeling in Oxford that we should be trying to distance ourselves from the reality TV game show pheno- menon.

"But just because the whole nation's watching it, doesn't mean it's low brow.

"This is what people are watching and it's an interesting social experiment."

The event will run from noon on Saturday to midnight.

Members of the public can watch from the college's Junior Common Room, in New Inn Hall Street.