Mike Mulvihill
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It's four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon and I'm 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.
Gladiators, Sun, Sky One, 6pm/10pm
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This lot of gladiators are definitely a lot slimmer than the last bunch and more natural looking. Although still muscular, you can see that they are not pumped with steriods and artifically inflated. Maybe the message is getting through after all these years!
Looking forward to the show.
Vincent Wong, Milton Keynes,