How did your involvement with The Crystal Maze initially come about?N: I met David G Croft for the first time when we worked on a comedy special for Channel 4. It was a tricky shoot and there were numerous logistical and technical challenges to overcome, but I obviously did OK because a few weeks later Malcolm Heyworth called me to say David had recommended he meet me to discuss the production manager role on Crystal Maze series 2! I knew who Malcolm was because 8 years previously in my first ever TV job I was studio runner (aka teaboy and floor sweeper) on the first series of Treasure Hunt which was also a Chatsworth Television show. When I met Malcolm of course he didn’t remember a minion like me, but we both had the same memories of all the funny things and stories that happened in the Treasure Hunt studio, had a laugh or three and suddenly I was in!
What Production challenges did you face filming on such a huge TV set, one of the biggest in Europe at the time?
N: The first challenge was the biggest one so I will tell you about that! A couple of weeks after I started, Shepperton Studios (where series 1 had been made) reneged on the studio booking for series 2. Hollywood came a-knocking with millions of dollars and wanted to hire every studio at Shepperton for nearly a year for a Kevin Costner film called Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. So Crystal Maze was gazumped and basically told to shove off. Unbelievably Shepperton called me just before series 3 to ask if Crystal Maze would consider coming back to them – as you can imagine I left them in no doubt about our feelings on the matter! So I had to find a space and quickly – and a very big one which was the issue.
The Crystal Maze set was 240ft long and 120ft wide – nearly 29,000 square feet, and with studio control rooms and space to move cameras around a total of at least 30,000 sq ft of useable open space was needed, with no pillars, walls or obstructions of any kind. There were only two proper film studios that size in the UK – the one we’d just been thrown out of and the 007 Bond stage at Pinewood, which is truly enormous, but was unavailable for our dates. I spoke with Eon Production’s (Bond film producers and studio owners) and explained that we were a TV show and didn’t have the sort of budget they were used to, but hopefully they could do a deal for two months hire. The great deal they came up with was £9,000 a day just for the empty space and wouldn’t budge – our budget was under £2,000 per day! I spent weeks looking at spaces and possibilities around the London area with no joy and then started further afield. We ended up in an aircraft hangar on North Weald airfield, just off the M11 near Harlow in Essex. It had the space but absolutely nothing else that we would need – no large electrical supplies, no running water, no toilets, no sewerage, no changing or dressing rooms, no office space, no workshops or set building areas or facilities – it was just a very cold, rusting tin shed in the middle of nowhere.
There were other issues too, most of them affecting live sound – you could hear the roar of the M11 nearby, there was a clay pigeon shooting club which also peppered shotgun noise everywhere, private planes occasionally taking off or landing, an infestation of rats below and pigeons in the ceiling, when it rained hard you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise it made on the roof, and being of corrugated iron construction was colder than a fridge (even during filming, which was always November-December, some mornings we had to break the ice in the dome, Aztec river and game water tanks and encourage them to melt.) It’s the only studio show I have ever worked on where the crew had to wear thermals, gloves and winter jackets indoors! But we made it work and to be honest we had to. We built or shipped in everything we needed – generators, mobile offices, portacabins, toilets, catering, dining bus etc – we built sound barriers, felted the roof and occasionally played a recording of a sparrow hawk to frighten the pigeons away!
Despite everything, the loyalty of the suppliers and crews to the show was amazing and although it was not a particularly pleasant working environment the team spirit never diminished. A testament to that was that we stayed at North Weald for the next 5 years until the bitter end. We were also able to leave the set standing and kept the hangar on permanent hire which saved so much money on dismantling, transport, storage and builds between each series that each year we could afford to build and install better and more comfortable infrastructures. North Weald soon became a home from home and we wouldn’t have gone back to a film studio even if they’d paid us!
Do you know the reasons why Richard O’Brien was chosen as Maze Master?
N: This is really a question for David and Malcolm to answer in more detail, but the key element about Crystal Maze is that it is a totally fictitious world where suspension of belief is key to the fantasy and format. As such the best presenters are ones that are slightly eccentric and quirky, and can develop a character and act a part that cannot be associated with anything similar outside of that world. They definitely shouldn’t be themselves or widely known for other things because the viewer then won’t also be fully immersed in the standalone fantasy. Both Richard and Ed fitted this brief perfectly –
neither of them were widely known in the TV world, both were great actors, definitely quirky and able to be 100% solely associated with the show.
What was it like working with David G.Croft, James Dillon and Malcolm Heyworth?
N: Amazing – they taught me so much about format and creative development and execution, and gave me my first experience of managing large and complex productions. This led to being in demand for other major projects with other producers and broadcasters for which I will be eternally grateful. The key thing was that they knew exactly what they were doing, worked together very closely and between them produced a clear and decisive vision of what they wanted - then ensured that everything was communicated down the line so that every department could both contribute, embellish and most importantly pull in the same direction. These qualities are missing so much in the TV entertainment world of today which is often far less streamlined and tends to involve much larger teams pulling in all directions and not communicating effectively.
What part of the original Crystal Maze set was your favourite part to work on?
N: I always liked Medieval the most as it looked so real both on screen and when you were physically in it – as long as you didn’t look up of course as the lighting and scaffolding above spoiled the magic! Then Ocean came along and usurped Medieval in my affection – James Dillon’s overall design and attention to detail was fantastic – and although it was supposed to be a wreck at the bottom of the sea, it still seemed even more real than Medieval.
Further parts will be posted on the blog over the next few days. I am actually meeting Nick in person in London next Tuesday, and I am excited about it.
Part 2 here
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