The Compound is a television gameshow, a kind of logical extension of Love Island and I’m a Celebrity, with the challenges and the cruelty ramped up a notch. Lily is a determined participant, one of twenty, who wake up in the ‘house’ or trek to it across the desert.

The place is deliberately inhospitable and the tasks are often designed to stir up trouble. However, the participants also receive gifts individually and as a group, often cleverly linked to promotions. As with all such shows, there is the opportunity to vote people out and, as the numbers diminish, so does the cutthroat rivalry between the participants. That extends to their romantic attachments which are encouraged!

It is clever how the increasing nastiness of the programme, in contrast to today’s television, is linked to a much nastier world of constant war outside which is hinted at rather than made obvious. And, in the end, the hostility between the participants approaches the primitive level of Lord of the Flies!

It makes for a fast moving story and would make a good film somewhere along the line. Also, let’s hope that not too many programme makers get to read it!