Drinking it all in on campus

The drink goes in one end and out the other.

Think Fear Factor crossed with your 21st birthday video and you've got an idea of what to expect from Studentville, C4's new reality show about Kiwi life on campus, starting Monday 10pm.

The 10-part series is a chance to spot your mates at toga parties, slime wrestling matches and "O Week" at the country's various universities. Other must-sees are the Exponents at "the Hilly", the Hyde Street Keg Party and footage from the University of Auckland mass haka in Queen Street, 1964.

Oh, and an interview with some guy who ate two-minute noodles for 30 days.

"Studentville is not definitive of what it is to be a student because it's a really personal thing," says producer Hamish Coleman-Ross, an Otago BA graduate who worked on Dunedin's Cow TV. "We just like to get as many quirky things as we can, and social settings are the best way to do that. We found a wealth of student lifestyle."

By that he doesn't mean pub-corner philosophy discussions. Serious discourse revolves around the sexiness of one's nipples, the plenitude of "tappable bitches" and other slurred yet enlightening issues. Coleman-Ross originally wanted to follow Otago students' exploits but discovered it wasn't just the Scarfies who knew how to have a good time.

Some funding came from www.varsity.co.nz but he couldn't have made the $30,000 show without sleeping in his car.

Won't embattled Otago police and firefighters be thrilled to hear that the couch-burners and bottle throwers have been given their own TV show? Coleman-Ross also filmed the notorious Undie 500.

"I'm really sad with what has happened down there," he says. "We don't condone it ... The couch-burning has become an overused image of Otago and hopefully Studentville will give people something other than destruction to celebrate."

He defends filming students drinking by arguing that the gatherings covered were well-organised, R18 events on licensed premises.

"We didn't speak to anyone who was so gone they didn't know what was going on. We're not really there to judge."