Who Are Next Week's (5th July) Celebrity Crystal Maze Contestants?

Another week passes, another Friday is upon us which means tonight at 8PM on Channel 4, the five celebs I covered last week have their turn on the games in the maze. That also means that next week is the turn of five more celebs of whom you may or may not be aware of, so here's a quick introduction for you to peruse between now and then.

Nancy Sorrell

Whilst she may be mostly known as the wife of Vic Reeves (more on him in a minute), Nancy has had a career in her own right. Starting as a model for high street fashion brands, she's been a TV presenter and appeared on such celebrity based shows as 'Hole in the Wall' and 'Celebrity Antiques Roadtrip'.

Fort Boyards 30th Anniversary Celebration Reveals Some Interesting Richard O'Brien Footage

 Up until now, we'd only ever seen two seconds of the back of Richard's head, so we knew it existed but it hadn't been seen online in any longer form. However last night, as part of the start of the new series of Fort Boyard in France, footage of the UK pilot appeared.

 The UK was the first country to buy the format after seeing the French pilot episode, then titled 'The Keys to Fort Boyard'. Chatsworth Television decided to devise a British version. A non-televised pilot of the British version was filmed with Richard O'Brien as presenter. However, it soon became clear the fort would not available for filming due to its renovations during 1989.

Who Are Next Week's (28th June) Celebrity Crystal Maze Contestants?

So it has begun, and I think we can all agree she was loud wasn't she. However in under a week, a new team of five famous faces enter the maze. For the uninitiated, let's meet them.

Anita Rani

Rani has been the presenter of a number of shows since the late 00's ranging from 'Cricket AM' on Sky Sports through to long-running consumer advice show 'Watchdog'. She can currently be seen as one of the hosts of another long-running show, 'Countryfile' which covers a range of rural and environmental topics.

An Interview with Executive Producer of The Crystal Maze, Neale Simpson!

Earlier this year, myself & team superfans were once again invited to take part in helping The Crystal Maze as Games Testers.

This time round, we had a more intense experience as Camera Blocking was taking place, so this meant all the cameras were cranking & rolling, and we were doing all the new entry methods into the maze for Aztec, Industrial & Future.

We also got to hang out briefly in the new zone, Eastern, and bumped into James Dillon who designed this wonderful masterpiece of a zone. Whilst we did not get to play any of the games in Eastern, we had a full day (9 Hours!) inside the wonderful world of the Crystal Maze.

Following our 9 hour marathon of gaming the maze, we went home almost euphoric and feeling like we left a dream state. We had a lot of questions, and Executive Producer Neale Simpson was kind enough to go through the interrogation we lined up for him.

Neale, firstly please let me re-iterate the thanks from all of us on Team Superfans and The Crystal Maze Fansite Blog for allowing us to enter the Maze again this year, and for your time in answering our questions about the 3^rd season of filming!

An absolute pleasure on all fronts!

Tomorrow, 8PM, Channel 4. Let's meet the celebrity contestants.

1 day to go so, for those unfamiliar with the names, let's introduce tomorrows celebs:

Gemma Collins

Featured on reality show 'The Only Way Is Essex' (and I'm using 'reality' in it's loosest form), self-confessed diva (Professionally self centered) Gemma has featured in such celebrity shows as 'Dancing on Ice' and was briefly on a series of 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here'. Pondered for a while for what clip to use but this one won the day.

Win a Crystal Competition

It looks like the Crystal Maze Social Media team are going to be running their annual 'win a Series Crystal' competition again on social media. Keep your eyes peeled on their Facebook page.

For competition rules, visit: https://m.facebook.com/notes/the-crystal-maze-tv/the-crystal-maze-online-competition-2019-rules-ep1/2343793565865973/

2 Days To Go, Another Day, Another Video On Social Media, More Celebrity Names

Another video has been put out by the lovely people in charge of marketing the show on social media and this one shows a lot more faces than has so far been named ahead of the showing of the first 6 episodes. Names I recognized include:

• Richard Blackwood (Actor)
• Nick Helm (Comedian)
• John Thompson (Actor/Comedian)

3 Days To Go, New Games, Including Knightmare meets Tron

Here's today's offering as we close in on Friday. A couple of clips, first a montage taken from Facebook showing a few new games, then secondly a look at our favourite game we've seen thus far.

4 Days To Go. First America, Now Let's Conquer The World #bringcrystalmazetoindia

I thought I'd be racking my brains all day to come up with something for today by 8PM, but today's post dropped into my lap. Well strictly speaking it dropped into the blog Twitter. I keep vigilant on Twitter looking for Crystal Maze discussion and one thing that crops up a lot is people around the world, particularly in India and the Middle East, having 90's memories often accompanied by a gif of Richard O'Brien. It turns out there are so many people who have fond memories of the original show who are completely unaware it's made a return.

It's already showing in Australia on SBS, but let's see if we can get it somewhere else.

Launch Week, What's Coming Up?

With under 5 days left until UK broadcast, we're a bit eager for Friday to hurry up and come round. Not least because it's been a long wait to see the new series on screen, but because after broadcast we'll have an exclusive interview with executive producer, and author of the series tie-in book 'The Crystal Maze Challenge, Let The Games Begin!', Neale Simpson here for your reading pleasure.

But not a moment before, can't be having spoilers now can we?

New Games Trailer

With a week to go before the new series starts, a trailer has been released showing off some of the new games and Eastern zone. Now we can finally show off some of (games designer) Anna Kidd's marvelous creations.

5 More Shows Worth of Crystal Maze Celebrity Teams

Thanks to chortle.co.uk we now have a lot more names for this summers series. As well as those already named for the 1st episode on the 21st, aiming to win money for Stand Up 2 Cancer will be:

• Anita Rani (Captain) - Presenter
• AJ Pritchard - Dancer
• Tom Rosenthal - Actor/Comedian "Friday Night Dinner"
• Hannah Cockcroft - Wheelchair Racer
• Jeff Stelling - 'Unbelievable' Football Host

Casting Info for Nickelodeon's 'The Crystal Maze'

Casting has started for the US version and we've got the following info from it:

• There will be a "Huge Cash Prize"
• They are asking for families of five, including at least two kids age 9-13 (could well stick to the UK format, two games each)
• Everyone needs a valid passport valid in August 2019
• Casting closes on the 5th of July.
• Applications can be made at kidscasting.com

Celebrity Names For Episode One, Maybe

I've been trawling the vast expanses of the information superhighway to try and find more names to sit alongside Gemma Collins (I will never say 'The GC'. I'm a grown-up... physically), James Argent and Sir Chris Hoy, and I may have found a snippet of info as to the line up for the first episode.

Realitytitbit.com is reporting that Collins and Argent will be on the first episode alongside:


'Impossible' host Rick Edwards,

'The Mash Report' comedian Ellie Taylor

and Channel 4 legend Carol Vorderman.

The Crystal Maze Fan Blog can now be followed on Twitter

Are you an avid reader of our but you never know when we've posted something new. Well we'll take the blame for that but not anymore as we can now be followed on Twitter @maze_blog

New posts, relevant links and general maze musings will all be on there.

And for anyone wondering, we're 90% certain the new series starts June 21st at 9pm on Channel 4.

EDIT: no sooner than half an hour after posting, Channel 4 confirmed that is indeed the date and time. It's going to be a long two weeks, look for celebrity names coming soon.

CORRECTION: 8PM! It's 8PM, not 9

Nickelodeon Producing The Crystal Maze: How Well Could It Go?

Right, we got a couple of posts out to catch the tide of TCM news, and there's plenty of that about now. So let's just have a calm consideration of what this new series could be like.

The Crystal Maze gets an International Version - USA Edition confirmed!

Today we have received huge Crystal Maze news...(again). Nearly thirty years after its inception, The Crystal Maze will finally be exported transatlantic to the United States. Rightly it deserves so, credited as one of the original forerunners of the Escape Room phenomenon we are witnessing today. It is such an exciting time to be a Crystal Maze fan at the moment. A new Zone, (Eastern), and now fittingly at the same time, the show goes West. Finally it earns an International Version.

America: Nickelodeon greenlights The Crystal Maze

Well this is exciting, isn't it? Following on from our blog in April where there was rumours of a US version, it seems those rumours have become reality. Bunim Murray Productions have had the green light from Nickelodeon to make a US series of 'The Crystal Maze'

As can be read here, 10 one hour episodes are set to go into production using the set at the Bottleyard, Bristol as we predicted. It's going to be family teams so expect communication breakdowns and parental embarrassment.

Celebrity Names For The New Series (to be updated)

Whilst nobody has been confirmed by Channel 4, we do have a few names that have managed to slip the secrecy net online.

Gemma Collins and James Argent: These stars of The Only Way Is Essex let slip their involvement on social media