Gladiators: The serious business behind ITV's prime-time 'panto'

The BBC is bringing back the Gladiators franchise in the hopes that it can reach the show's huge success from the 1990s. The new season starts on Saturday and promises to be an exciting mix of action and comedy. Reviewers thought the arena fights were stupid, but the fight to have them on screen was a big thing.

Diane Youdale says, "I'll never forget the moment I heard a 'pop.'" She talks about the fall that was "one step too close" to breaking her neck.

Millions of people follow the 26-year-old, who is known as Jet, and she rugby tackled another competitor from a high place. She then fell awkwardly to the crash mats below and caught the other competitor's body in her own.

As they helped me into the ambulance, I was in so much pain that I thought I might be able to roll away while my limbs were still working. I've done my four years and now it's time for me to step down.

As "Gladiators' very own Wonder Woman" in the pilot episode, Youdale won over a lot of fans. She did a bunch of different sports challenges against fans, and her hair flicks and backflips won them over.

The former gymnastics champion is proud to say that Day-Glo became "a Saturday-night ritual" because ITV took a chance on a new style.

The injury at a Wembley Arena event in 1996 that wasn't shown on TV was the deciding factor, but it took a heavy toll.

The ups and downs of Jet mirrored the program's own ups and downs. Behind the scenes, it had been a huge battle to convince commissioning heads of the program's promise, and it had been an even bigger battle to get the right group of enthusiastic participants together.

Around the middle of the 1980s, Youdale left Billingham, which is on Teesside, to study dance in London. She talks about when she was a "jobbing actor" and a director.

A director approached her in early 1992, and she made sure she had a seat by "blitzing" an Army assault course at Woolwich Barracks.

She was scared she would get "beaten up" because she was 5 feet 6 inches (1.67 meters) tall and weighed 9 stone 6 pounds (60 kilograms). But she knew the American version of the show and thought they were asking her to try out.

The people on the American show looked like beasts; they were strong bodybuilders and fighters. Look at that! It was just me, a little dancer!

London Weekend Television (LWT) didn't have a lot of people they could hire. However, even though they read fitness magazines and looked at the market, they didn't notice that bodybuilders back then were not useful athletes.

It wouldn't matter how much money they had to get to the bus stop on time.

They probably thought about it for a few years. They would pick an actor or actress, only to find out later that the person wasn't popular, was weird, or wasn't right for the part in some other way.

It was different from everything else in that highly sought-after time slot when it first played on ITV on October 10, 1992, along with Blind Date and Beadle's About. It was often put up against "Gotchas" and the gunge tank of BBC One's Noel's House Party.

People knew the Lycra-clad fighters as Warrior, Wolf, Shadow, and Cobra because they were so good at events like Hang Tough and Duel. In the Eliminator showdown, participants had to go through a tough assault course.

The producers in the UK wanted glitz, glamour, and mood, while the producers in the US wanted something that was studio-bound and had a small audience.

A lot of people at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena were "pumped up" by the G-Force cheerleading to famous music.

Since the third season, Jonathan Glazier has been in charge of the show. He says that LWT is "a panto" that "everyone in the family" can enjoy.

Still, there was a lot of pressure because of money worries.

"That Saturday slot was hugely important," he shares. "The channels were in a fight for the audience and it was going to be expensive to make."

Ian Hyland, a TV critic for the Daily Mirror, says that "people genuinely loved - or loved to hate - the characters" in Gladiators. This is why the show was so popular, especially after David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson's beachy Baywatch antics.

Like most people, you cheered for them too. Do keep in mind that this happened back when regular people going on TV wasn't very common.

Even though the show was "going gangbusters" when Glazier took over as director, he says the early presentations needed a new method.

"At the start, nobody quite knew what it was and so the arena wasn't always full," he said.

You were able to pull off the amazing trick of moving half of the crowd to cover empty seats with some smart editing.

"People used to make jokes about it being a glorified pillow fight, but if you've ever been on the receiving end of those pugil sticks [used in Duel] you'll understand there's nothing Toytown about it."

With millions of people watching, Youdale had her mom read the fan mail. It was "uncomfortable" at times how much attention there was.

According to her, "once the show went out it was hard to hide." The program was always happy, though, so there was never a bad or uncomfortable time. Things could have gone in a different direction.

The yearly contract reviews made things even worse because producers kept an eye on how famous and well the actors were doing. Events like Shadow's firing for drug charges got a lot of attention in the tabloids.

Help was on the way, though.

Glazier said that the goal was to make sure that everyone on board was happy. They were just regular people when they first got in touch with us.

"The machine of ITV was there to help protect them by managing their personal appearances, and contracts were as level and fair as they could be."

Youdale wanted to live a life away from "the bright lights" after she left the stage, so she went to school to become a psychotherapist and counselor.

Due to a drop in viewers, the last show of Gladiators aired in January 2000. The huge reality TV show that has taken over Saturdays since then was just around the corner.

Glazier, who is currently in Singapore as the executive producer and director of Asia's Got Talent, says, "We knew live TV was where it was going."

"The elimination singing format was perfect for that and it sustained ITV and the BBC for years."

Gladiators is coming back for a second season on BBC, with Bradley Walsh and his son Barney in charge. The show had a short comeback on Sky in 2008–09. But does it really want to win a fight that it can't?

Youdale is one of the hosts of the GladPod show and thinks it will do well. He remembers the first one from the 1990s.

"The odds are against it [having the same cultural impact] because it was new and we only had four or five channels, but with a prime-time slot it will get the energy it needs," she said.

"I'm really excited."

Posted in Other on January 11 at 06:16 AM

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