THE moment when ten ladettes descended on a sleepy country village will be aired on television tonight.

Eggleston Hall, in Teesdale, County Durham, is the location for a new reality TV show being screened on ITV at 9pm.

Ladette to Lady has taken ten hard-drinking, loud-mouthed girls and placed them at Eggleston Hall - a former finishing school -with the aim of turning them into society debutantes.

The show was filmed by RDF Media the company behind reality shows Wife Swap and Faking It.

Tasks given to the girls include passing themselves off at a dinner dance and country house weekend, cooking for a dinner party and wine tasting.

During a break from their training, the girls were treated to a night at the Raby Arms pub, in nearby Barnard Castle.

All the training seemed to be forgotten however, as the girls challenged local men to drinking games.

Abi Harrison, 23, from Barnard Castle, was in the pub when the girls arrived.

She said: "They had been for a meal in the pub and then came back through to the bar and started playing drinking games with some of the local lads.

"They were downing tequilas and other shots and I think they beat the lads.

Published: 02/06/2005