A television show featuring would-be monks in Sussex has been made by the company responsible for Badly Dubbed Porn and Pet Plastic Surgery.

A crew from Cactus Films spent 40 days and nights with five volunteers at Worth Abbey, near Crawley, to make the show The Monastery.

The firm claims the finished product is not just another reality show but an observational documentary .

The five men include a builder, a Cambridge student, an advertising executive and a retired poet.

They were forced to live by the order's rules, including rising at 6am and attending mass six times a day.

A spokesman from Cactus Films said: "People will be able to see whether they like the lifestyle or not.

"It is not Big Brother, it is an observational documentary."

The show was filmed last summer.

It will be broadcast in six hour-long programmes on BBC2 but does not yet have a transmission date.