Nick played the dead Scientist in the Futuristic Science Lab Mystery Game!
How were Richard O’Brien and Edward Tudor-Pole as Presenters to work with, on and off camera?:
N: Both Richard and Ed were great to work with and pretty undemanding really. Neither came in with any star pretentions or expecting to be anything but part of the wider team and treated similarly. Although they were building a part/character on screen their off screen personalities were not hugely different either. Of course productions always treat their stars properly and give them some additional luxuries and the strange thing about Crystal Maze was that its stars never wanted any of it. Key crew members and anyone working 6 consecutive days were put up at the Moat House hotel in Harlow just up the road from the airfield. Moat House hotels were the basic 2 or 3 star budget business hotels of the day – ok but very basic. When I told Richard that I was going to book him, Malcolm and David into a luxury hotel slightly further away he was horrified. He said he wanted to be with everyone else at the Moat House, have dinner with the new contestants the night before each show and be able to have a drink with us all in the bar afterwards. David and Malcolm were somewhat disappointed I think at having to stay at the Moat House too! I also offered him a decent chauffeur-driven car for his journeys to/from home but he said he’d rather one of the production runners did it in a hire car so he could have a “good chat about the day’s events”! When Ed joined us I went through similar suggestions, but he was of the same mind and lumped in with the rest of us too.
What part caused you the most challenges on set? I’ve read about the sand blowing into the fans of the Crystal Dome from Aztec. You also had the Aztec River and the Crystal Dome drawbridge, as well as the moving lift in futuristic. A highly ambitious, technical show. How did you ensure it all worked for the cameras?
N: Nothing really major just the usual annoyances that crop up on set. I don’t remember the sand in the dome but I’m not surprised – sand as they say gets everywhere. George our props man on most series was constantly raking it and hosing it down to keep it damp and contained. The airfield also had a few resident cats that got in and used Aztec as a giant litter tray – George had the glamorous job of dealing with that too! Very occasionally we’d have an issue with hydraulics on the dome drawbridge and Aztec lift – I remember once contestants using a ladder to get from Future to Aztec instead. The key to running a big set is to keep your eyes and ears open, constantly check for damage and wear and tear and deal with things before they get worse – just like you would in an office building or if running a fleet of vehicles. The biggest bugbear, which I mentioned above was the noisy environment. We had to stop recording completely a few times when the RAF decided to land. Malcolm used to tell me to tell them to go away but I explained that the RAF do what the RAF want to do! The gliding club next door, the occasional private pilots based there and airfield security were very helpful and used to call with likely times or advance warning of take offs and landings – on average there were probably only 6 or so a day though. In a few shows when aircraft noise was noticeable Richard or Ed would say “here come the next team flying into the Crystal Maze….”
Ladders. Never leave Earth without one.
Was it easy to transport games in and out of the cells?
N: Most of the time. Most of the cells backed onto a fire lane/walkway that ran around the entire set or onto hidden voids between the zones, and their rear walls were easily removed for access. The one game that was tricky was a game called Rat Run which was a 3 level enclosed wire mesh maze that contestants had to crawl around. It was huge and filled the biggest cell in Industrial. It came pre-constructed in 3 large pieces (one per level) and there wasn’t room between cell and hangar wall to turn them horizontal and slide them in. We had to bring in a team of riggers with chain hoists and ropes/pulleys and it took a whole morning to install.
9. Why did you pick teams who didn’t know each other, and avoid celebrities?
N: Again this was an early format decision. If teams already know each other they are often ‘too nice’ to each other on screen. I notice in the new series that all the normal teams (rather than the so-called celebrity ones) know each other and nearly always buy out any locked in team members before the dome. I think this is something the new series has got wrong. In the original series the teams only got to meet the night before over dinner. You can see the difference in the shows – the light frictions and strategic decisions whether to leave locked in or buy out based only on a desire to win rather than ‘being kind to your mate’. Back in the nineties, there wasn’t the vogue for all these celebrity shows so I don’t think the idea was ever mooted. What was desired were more episodes with children, but as we filmed during term time and there are a host of other issues when using children (licences and school/local authority permissions, additional parents/chaperones to travel/accommodate, restrictions on working hours etc) it wasn’t feasible. We managed to make the children’s Christmas specials by only taking them out of school for one day with just head teacher approval and working on a Saturday.
10. Did you have a particularly favourite game in The Crystal Maze?
N: I am a bit biased here because it’s a game I was in! I played the part (if it can be described as such) of a dead scientist in a laboratory in Future zone. Slumped over a desk (so you couldn’t see my face) the contestants had to solve various clues and finally place my hand on a palm reader to release the crystal. The game was in 4 episodes. Although my face couldn’t be seen so many people I know recognised me……usually with “Was that you being a dead body on the Crystal Maze last night?...I thought so, I recognised your bald patch”! Part 3 here
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