IT IS the ultimate adventure - a windswept island survival test with none of the modern comforts we all take for granted.But that is the challenge for one Suffolk labourer who has been selected to join a dozen other contestants in the BBC's latest Castaway series.

IT IS the ultimate adventure - a windswept island survival test with none of the modern comforts we all take for granted.

But that is the challenge for one Suffolk labourer who has been selected to join a dozen other contestants in the BBC's latest Castaway series.

Hassan Kobeissi, 24, from Newmarket, has already left for the programme, is sure he can cut the mustard in the survival stakes - despite being a self confessed “mummy's boy”.

“I'm going to be on the other side of the world having the time of my life,” he said.

The labourer, who does not have a girlfriend, says he is a brilliant flirt and gets on better with women than men.

He works out at the gym regularly and is a keen golfer but perhaps his love of swimming, running and fishing will stand him in better stead for the coming ordeal.

The 13 castaways taking part in the second series of “the original reality show” also include a young Tory, a mother-of-four, a former drug addict and a lap dancer.

The original series of Castaway, broadcast seven years ago, lasted a year and saw 36 people surviving in the Scottish Outer Hebrides.

This time, the castaways will spend 12 weeks on Great Barrier Island in New Zealand. One lucky viewer will get the chance to join them eight weeks into the show.

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 run from Monday to Thursday on BBC3.

Seven people left during the course of the year in the first series, in 2000, which won by Ben Fogle, who has since gone on to develop a successful broadcasting career.