A GROUP of “outrageous” older women could soon be challenging Towie for reality TV ratings.

Golden Ladies is being filmed on Southend High Street and Leigh on Good Friday and today and follows eight women between the ages of 40 and 58 from Southend and Castle Point.

Production company Hello Films auditioned for the show on social media last summer, before whittling the cast down ready for filming.

Filming started about a month ago and is expected to finish at the end of June.

Researcher Toby Sanders, 33, moved to Leigh from Surrey to work on the project, which came from a chance meeting with one of the cast members at Lakeside. He said the company hoped to offer something different to the monotony of current reality TV offerings.

Mr Sanders said: “We’ve seen a lot of reality shows that are quite boring and are really just people talking about relationships and who’s slept with who, so we wanted to do something different.

“All of these ladies have very interesting lives in terms of what they actually do and we felt it was good to get that on camera.

“It’s a little like a mix between Real Housewives and Desperate Housewives.”