The new Celebrity Big Brother house has been unveiled to reveal plastic horses, a jail cell, and, as is tradition, a strangely-social bathroom.

Pictures released by Channel 4, ahead of the series launch on Friday, showed the reality show’s designers have continued down the gaudy path trod in series past, throwing gold around the bathroom and decorating the bedroom with red stars.

Despite a hand-powered washing machine, two exercise bikes and a gold bathroom beanbag, it is the three white carousel horses in the back garden that throw up the most questions.

Producers have remained silent about who is due to enter the house on Friday night, but TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson, former Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton and onetime Sugababe Mutya Buena are rumoured contestants.

The show is returning after being rested for a year following the race row that engulfed the last series.

Ofcom attracted more complaints than it had ever received from one show over the treatment of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty by Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara.

The media watchdog later found that Channel 4 made "serious editorial misjudgements" in its handling of the show.

The 2008 series was replaced by a new format, Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, largely shown on E4, which failed to attract the viewers of its predecessor.

This year’s Big Brother series also struggled to achieve the rating highs of previous seasons.

Davina McCall returns to host the series, with onetime contestant Michael Barrymore joining the presenting team as a roving reporter for spin-off show Little Brother.

Celebrity Big Brother launches live at 9pm on Friday, January 2 on Channel 4.

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