After eight years in the wilderness, TV's best beat 'em up is back. But, says David Stubbs, for sheer stamina, the audience are the real winners...It's 9am on a Friday morning, and some of us have just enough energy to pop an Aspirin and scribble a suicide note, no more. However, unnaturally, there are hundreds of punters crammed into a vast and (save for the 1,500 lights) gloomy hangar at Shepperton Studios, cheering like hooter monkeys, brandishing giant red and blue foam fingers with uniform abandon - except for the one chap in the third row who's frozen with terror, complaining that he has a "fear of foam". Many of them are schoolkids, for whom any escape from lessons at any time is a cue for mass cheering. Others are there to root for the competitors: Graham, Tom, Jeanine, Greg from Bristol and Gail, "The Gail Force".
Eight years after it departed ITV's screens, having attained audiences in the tens of millions, Gladiators is back on Sky TV. There's a fresh cast of warriors and new presenters, Kirsty Gallacher and Ian Wright, for whom this evidently represents a bid for gravitas, having parted company with the BBC's football panel for not treating him seriously enough. The original TV Gladiators aired in America but was quickly and successfully adopted in the UK. The 2008 version of the show has made some modifications: the costumes are marginally toned down and the gladiators themselves are leaner and meaner, rather than the puffed-up body builder types of yore. "It's less camp, more fierce," says Du'Aine Ladejo, aka Predator. "Then again, here I am sitting in a body bra!"
The games, however - including Duel and Powerball - remain much the same, while there's continuity also in John Anderson, the hardbitten Scottish referee whose stern admonitions ("Hwait for the HWHISTLE! Hthree! Htwo! Hwone!") cow both competitors and gladiators alike. "You don't mess with John," shudders Enigma, AKA Jenny Pacey, 25, a former bobsleigh competitor. She used to watch Gladiators as a child. "I used to run home from swimming galas to catch it." That, along with the realisation that Wolf, the most infamous of the male gladiators, is now entering his late 50s, is a grim reminder of time's passing.
Advance press shots of the new gladiators show a gallery of fresh characters, throwing poses against fiery backdrops, chiselled as if for a frieze. Yet beneath their fearsome monikers and descriptions persists a feeling of England, this England, its market towns, call centres and malls. Battleaxe ("A weapon of war, domineering, aggressive and indomitable, a warrior queen") is Shirley Webb, a business manager from Edinburgh. Spartan ("Handsome, disciplined and brave, will take on any army, the perfect warrior") is Roderick Bradley from Grantham. Atlas ("As strong as He-Man, fights hard but with dignity") is Sam Bond, a "charity fundraiser" from Bournemouth. Then there is Panther, AKA Kara Nwidobie ("Beautiful, sleek and prowling, fierce and aggressive - the most powerful of them all"). She is a day nurse manager from the decidedly un-Amazonian Lancaster ("A Christmas nativity play is far scarier than doing Gladiators"), who speaks with a north-west accent so engagingly unpretentious it brings her down to earth as quickly as she does Jeanine into the pool with her pugil stick during Duel. She's actually looking forward to returning to her day job. "I don't want all my kids and parents to think I'm a big meanie!" she says, though the highly competitive ex-discus thrower in her flashes briefly to the surface when she remarks upon the cockiness of the competitors circa 2008. "In the old days they were like, 'Ooh, yes, Jet's great, a wonderful gladiator.' Now they're all chatty in the interviews, saying they're going to smash us up proper."
It was Jeanine, a product of a more upfront, soundbiting, telly-ready New Britain, who made this latter remark. She was dispatched for her pains by Panther after ten or so seconds into the water, with the strains of Tubthumping striking up to add further pennies to the royalty fund that mercifully ensures that Chumbawamba need never make another record ever again. Head of the new gladiators is Du'Aine Ladejo, 36, AKA Predator, a former 400 metres European Champion. "Doing this, to me, is more fun than the Olympics - and I never thought I'd say that," he grins. He chuckles also at the persistent delusion among the general public, from whom competitors are drawn, that the gulf between themselves, fit and game as they are, and the gladiators, often B-grade track and field athletes, is not huge. The competitors, clad in their slightly humiliating blue and red rookie outfits, appear to be handpicked for gutsiness but also puniness.
Take poor Greg, who describes himself as "five foot six and a half inches tall" when interviewed by Kirsty Gallacher, herself towering above him in her heels. He is swatted aside in his challenges with the skirted Spartan, who has been the victim of bawdy and ribald chanting from the hen-party section of the crowd, unrepeatable in a family newspaper. It can be forgotten that the competitors, although pitted against the gladiators, are actually competing with each other; Battleaxe, Engima, Panther, Atlas and the rest are merely the gods hurling obstacles in their way. There is, however, an underlying morality to Gladiators, as Ladejo explains: "We're giving kids another kind of role model, one they're not getting from sports. All the gladiators, whether good or bad, do not cross the referee. We do not mess with John. He is the law."
In the context of the present-day slew of Darwinian reality shows, from Pop Idol to The Apprentice, which have flourished since the demise of the first UK Gladiators, such underlying decency might seem admirable but quaint. Could it be that this will be a turn-off for a new generation of punters virulent in their ambition to be on TV and hopefully famous, whatever it takes? Certainly, for sheer physical endurance, the award on this day of shooting must go not to the gladiators, who get to snooze or cruise Facebook in the breaks between shoots. Nor to the competitors. Nor, even, to the warm-up guy (probably the hardest-working man in the studio) whose job it is to keep the crowd geed up, with a free Wii on offer to the audience member who goes the most conspicuously and consistently crazy.
No, the endurance award goes to the audience. Today's shoot will be compressed, on TV, to 20 or so minutes of rolling action, interviews and cheering. The reality is that, from nine through four, this audience, including the foamophobe, will have been crammed inside a muggy hangar for several hours of mostly static, droning tedium without a break while Health & Safety carry out constant checks, Kirsty fluffs her lines and competitors are winched back and forth across the pool, or asked to go back into the water to re-emerge for second or third takes. Even the opera is not this cruel. Yet still they whoop on cue and wave their foam fingers. Moreover, many of them will be back for future shoots. Why?
Because it's telly. Those you'd have thought would just about die of boredom, we salute you.
It's four o'clock on the previous day and Mike Mulvihill is standing in a darkened arena surrounded by hundreds of hysterical fans. Strobe lights flash, sparks fly and flames jump to the ceiling as before us a 32-year-old mother of two from Edinburgh grapples with a former British discus thrower from Blackpool on a Perspex platform suspended 10ft in the air. There's only ever going to be one winner and as our plucky mum sails through the air to the tune of Boom! Shake the Room, I rise to my feet to join the chant. It's only then I remember that I'm wearing a pair of 3ft foam hands with the index finger pointing straight to the sky. Boom boom boom tick BOOM.
I am, of course, in the audience of Gladiators, the 1990s television series that has been revived after more than eight years. First conceived in America and launched in Britain in 1992, the series ran for eight years and, at its height, attracted 14 million viewers. Together with Baywatch and Blind Date, it formed the holy trinity of ITV's classic Saturday early evening line-up, offering good clean entertainment for all the family.
The Gladiators finally got the thumbs down on January 1, 2000, and it looked as though they had laid down their pugil sticks for good, until the recent Hollywood writers' strike threw the series an unexpected lifeline. With no scripts, big shows such as Desperate Housewives, Lost, Heroes and 24 were forced to suspend production, leaving the American TV stations with huge holes in their schedules. To help to fill the gaps, NBC revived Gladiators, with Hulk Hogan and Muhammad Ali's daughter Lalia as hosts. It proved a roaring success, pulling in 12 million viewers for its premiere. It was only going to be a matter of time before it earned a reprieve here, too.
But much has changed since Gladiators was last on our screens. It has moved channels, from ITV to Sky One, and moved days from Saturday to Sunday. The venue has changed, too, from the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham to Shepperton Studios in southwest London, and the presenters have had a facelift, with John Fashanu, Ulrika Jonsson and Jeremy Guscott (no, I don't remember him either) making way for Kirsty Gallacher and Ian Wright, who has gone from being the BBC's “court jester” to the master of ceremonies in the world's biggest adult adventure playground.
Gone, too, are the original Gladiators. Wolf has howled his last howl (well, he is 52 and running a children's play centre in New Zealand), and Saracen, Lightning, Rhino, Hunter and co have also been replaced by a younger, sexier new breed who are said to be three times fitter and stronger than their predecessors. (There's only one way to settle this, as Harry Hill would say, “FIGHT!”)
One man who is returning is the referee John Anderson (“Contender you will go on my first whistle”), who also helps to select and train the new Gladiators, and he is certainly impressed with the new crop. “The last set of Gladiators were wonderful,” he says, “but we're in the 21st century now, we've moved on and I think the expectation levels for both Gladiators and Contenders are much higher. The audience will fall in love with the new Glads,” he continues. “They will be so impressed with their quality, size and beauty. This is a stunning group - they have great personalities and they are physically superb.” Backstage I get the chance to see for myself, and I can confirm that they are an awesome sight. The men look like a much harder version of the Chippendales; the women like pumped-up Spice Girls. As I wander the corridors, with the smell of baby oil and spray tan hanging heavy in the air, I see the former Olympic medallist Du'aine Ladejo being transformed into Predator; Atlas putting the final touches to his long blond mane; and Ice rearranging her costume, which involves pulling a tiny piece of silver material from between the firmest pair of buttocks I've ever seen.
In their BacoFoil costumes, the Gladiators resemble sexy futuristic warriors - Barbarella meets the Terminator. Inferno, with her striking red hair, looks hot, Panther looks as though she could eat you alive, and Battleaxe looks as if she's having serious second thoughts about being talked into taking that name.
Tempest, at 19, is the baby of the bunch, and has the potential to succeed Jet as the most lusted-after female Gladiator. She is, in real life, the heptathalete Lucy Boggis, who harbours dreams of competing at the 2012 Olympics. The heavily tattooed Tornado is a Royal Marine who re- turns to Afghanistan after filming ends, while Oblivion, the 21-year-old, 16st wrestler Nick Aldis, is the meanest, and should claim Wolf's crown as the one everyone loves to hate. But although the faces have changed, Gladiators is still essentially the same show that you remember. “The thing about Gladiators is that it is what it is,” Wright tells me later in his dressing room. “It's Gladiators, so you can't veer off the template because that's why people love it. There's a natural drama to it, a kind of natural emotion that comes out - and you get a good message out of it as well.”
So fans can look forward to the return of Duel, Powerball, Gauntlet, the Wall and Pyramid, plus Hit and Run and Hang Tough, which now has the added fun of taking place over water. And, of course, there's the thrill of the final Eliminator. But above all, what Gladiators retains is its ability to entertain the whole family at once. Even in our fractured multichannel age, there still seems to be an appetite for its trans-generational approach. Children can enjoy the thrills and spills of the games; mums can imagine themselves in the arms of a musclebound hunk; and dads can watch scantily clad young women swinging through the air without the fear of being caught.
“I believe there's still an innocence in people that makes them want to watch good, clean, wholesome fun with no one getting hurt,” Wright says. “This is what a game show is about. This was the last real show where the normal person on the street got the chance to become a hero to their kids, their family, everybody, then just go back to being a normal person again. That is what used to be entertaining and what is still entertaining today.” And if the reaction of the 1,000-strong crowd at Shepperton Studios, and just about everyone else I've spoken to, is anything to go by, he's right. It seems that Gladiators fever has gripped the nation once again. Gladiators ready. Contenders ready. Viewers ready. AWOOGA.
Where are they now?
Wolf AKA Michael Van Wijk
Recruited for Gladiators while taking anger management courses. Famously duped into appearing on the appeal to save Karla The Elephant on Brass Eye ("She needs Wolf Power or she will explode in a shower of pulped yams"). Today, at 55, Van Wijk kicks younger ass on the New Zealand caged fight scene.
Jet AKA Diane Youdale
The big-haired object of adolescent longing left after a fall during Pyramid. She now teaches Pilates in Manchester and runs lifestyle workshops.
Rhino AKA Mark Smith
The massive Rhino's most notable achievement since Gladiators Mark 1's demise was to beat up lottery winner Michael Carroll in a boxing match for charity. Today he crops up as a heavy everywhere, in TV series ranging from The Bill to Robin Hood.
Amazon AKA Sharron Davies
The current face (and shoulders) of BBC swimming coverage - not to mention Olympic silver medallist - was a Gladiator for one season only. She left after complaining about health and safety procedures. Wuss. Did Maximus ever whine about those tigers?
Gladiators, Sun, Sky One, 6pm/10pm
