A LAP dancer from Bolton has been named as one of the contestants on the new series of BBC1 reality show, Castaway.

Erica Hurst will join 12 other people on the show and spend 12 weeks on Great Barrier Island in New Zealand.

The Castaways will have to build their own shelter, grow and collect their own food, and use the land and ocean to feed themselves.

The weekly series, presented by Danny Wallace, begins on Friday on BBC1 and will also run every night from Monday to Thursday on BBC3.

Erica, aged 22 from Kearsley, harbours dreams of becoming an actress and recently completed a short acting course.

She regards herself as the life and soul of the party and recently married.

Erica, a tomboy, who enjoys snowboarding, Thai boxing and extreme sports, believes she will be able to cope with island life because she spent a fortnight in South America living in basic conditions with no electricity.

Her motto is "You only live once" and she says of becoming a Castaway: "It is the type of situation I have always dreamed to be in, where I could see what my full potential is."

The other castaways taking part in the second series of "the original reality show" include a young Tory, a mother-of-four and a former drug addict. The original series of Castaway, broadcast seven years ago, lasted a year and followed 36 people on an island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides.

BBC1 controller Peter Fincham promised "a lot of twists and surprises" to the format.

He said: "Castaway was the original reality show and the genre had evolved enormously since then. The original purpose, to see how people react once they are taken far away from all that they take for granted remains the same."

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