'Soul Partners' - Chinese Version of 'Friends' Makes Online Debut.

They are six Chinese twentysomethings, friends who live together after they were tricked into buying the same apartment. The day-to-day adventures of the characters - the Soul Partners - have a lot in common with those of Monica, Joey, Rachel, Phoebe and Chandler on the US sitcom Friends.

But, in a Big Brother-style twist, rather than rely on scriptwriters to decide the course of the show - now into the fourth of a planned 20 episodes - the writers listen to viewers before working on next week's plot.

And, as the show is featured on a video-sharing website called Mofile rather than television channels, it is an indication of how rapidly China is changing, socially and technologically.

Xun Xiang, a Shanghai office worker who came up with the idea for the show when she saw her co-workers joking during lunch break, said: "My colleagues and I are all fond of Friends so I think if I record funny scenes like in our daily life, it will amuse many people." She took the idea to Mofile, which is one of a number of homegrown video-sharing websites, and the show has attracted 1.5 million viewers.

The actors are all amateurs in their twenties, picked from a group of 1,000. The actors were told they must "remain composed" when delivering jokes during the show.

The four-bedroom apartment in Shanghai's Songjiang district - an area best described as "up and coming" and home to the English-themed development Thames Town - was given to them by a local property developer, and features adverts for the company during the show.

By transmitting on the web, Soul Partners can bypass the usual strict regulations on broadcasting, and the online voting is a rare form of democracy in a country where ballots are generally forbidden.

Coming up with a Friends-style show is no great shakes in the West, but in China it is an example of how the country is developing. Instead of living with their parents until they are married and well into their thirties, many urban residents now have their own apartments.

Visitors to the fan website have been critical so far, saying the plots are not organised and say the producers are overly influenced by Friends. "The performance of actors is far below the average level. Hope you make more progress," posted one anonymous visitor. (Clifford Coonan, The Independent)