WITHIN the mysterious world of The Crystal Maze, lived a few characters who brought the Zones to life. Dennis Price (Actor, Stage name: Dennis Llewellyn) - 1990's Crystal Maze actor who played Lance, Guard of the King's Seal and the Aztec High Priest, talks exclusively to The Crystal Maze Fan Blog. Here is the first instalment of his memories from working on the show.
If my memory serves me well, over a quarter of
a century after the fact, I first set foot on the path that led to my time on The Crystal Maze a year or so before I
started filming on series 5. I’d been lazing around at home in north-west
London one afternoon when I was surprised to get a series of urgent phone calls
from a few friends and an agent, asking me if it were true that I could speak
Latin? At some point, during the course of a previous shoot I’ve forgotten, I
must have mentioned that I’d studied Latin and ancient Greek to A level at
school in the 1970s to some of my new friends and colleagues, and someone,
somewhere must have remembered this.
I returned the calls, but without going into
the minutiae of what I later presented, I composed a short excerpt from a Black
Mass in Latin and performed it for an episode of Channel X’s The Unpleasant World of Penn & Teller.
I was a Satanic High Priest, whose role it was to perform a Black Mass at some luridly
decorated church in Richmond in south London for the benefit of the late,
lamented Christopher Reeve, the star guest on the show. I haven’t spoken to him
in a long time, but I’m as certain as I can be that Nick Badham worked on this
production, then later recommended me for the part of Lance, Guard of the
King’s Seal on series 5 of The Crystal
Maze, for which kindness I remain eternally grateful to him.
For some reason connected to the passing of the
years, I don’t remember my audition for the part, but I clearly recall that I
was enormously excited to be appearing on The
Crystal Maze, as it was a huge, huge show at the time. I made my way early
in the morning in my old Ford Capri from Hendon where I lived, around an
insanely busy M25 and then eventually up to the Aces High Studios at North
Weald Airfield. I was overjoyed to be able to surround a huge, hot breakfast
after I’d turned up, then I was taken to the wardrobe department, where I was
gradually transformed into the baleful, taciturn character that Ed Tudor-Pole
described as “Lance, Guard of the King’s Seal”.
All the original photos I had of my time on The Crystal Maze were lost in a blaze
that destroyed my home on March 8th last year, which is a great
shame, but I have a few photos of photos. I don’t remember having any say in
what I eventually wore on set, but looking back, I’m delighted with the massive
sword, huge cloak and furry collar, as I’ve long thought it was like a
forerunner of Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch on Game of Thrones. Not that I come close to this man amongst men, but
it’s yet another pleasing memory and aspect of my time on the show.
While I remember, aficionados of The Crystal Maze will be aware that Ed
Tudor Pole went on to have a small part as a preacher in one episode of Game of Thrones. I never appeared in
this particular series myself, to my regret, but two of my friends from my time
on what was then the world’s only touring mediaeval jousting tournament worked
extensively in the murderous world of Westeros; one was Rowley Irlam, the
triple Emmy winning stunt co-ordinator and the other was Dominic Preece, who in
turn spent most of his working time as the stunt co-ordinator on Outlander. But I digress.
On set, I was taken to meet David Croft, the
director and another man amongst men, and I’m delighted to say that I’m still
in regular touch with him all these years later. I also met Ed Tudor Pole and
we got along well, but my contact with him was strictly limited due to the nature
and schedule of the filming. I got to meet pretty much all the crew during my
time there, but it was a bit bewildering for me as there were so many of them
and they were all so tied up with their different jobs in and around the vast
hangar.
I was given two lines to say; which one I articulated
depended on whether or not the eager contestant had successfully completed
their allotted task, which was correctly putting together the elements of the
“King’s Seal”. I was told the result through a concealed earpiece and every one
of them got it right, as far as I can remember, so “That is the King’s Seal”
was all I said on camera during series 5. I had a great time while I was there;
I was paid very well and I think I spent 6 mornings filming in total, while I
was intrigued by the stories of the cavernous Hangar 6 being haunted, as I’d
been seriously interested in ghosts and such like since I was a kid back in the
1960s.
I was invited back the next year to audition
for the part of the Aztec High Priest in series 6, so I think I met up with
David once again at some offices in Oxford Street before being given the part.
This time around, instead of looking like Jon Snow and his brothers would do
over a decade later in Game of Thrones,
I wore some spangled outfit that might not be completely out of place on a
particularly lurid edition of Rue Paul’s
Drag Race. And now, I had some company, as there were two other guys with
me in the Aztec Zone and we spent a fair bit of time chatting together in some
secluded room before we were required on set.
One of them was a male model by the name of
Sam, a lovely, kind and warm gentleman, while the other was Marino Franchi, who
was working as a stripper at the time – well, not at exactly the same time, but after he’d finished filming for the day.
Marino was a great guy as well, but I’ve not seen either him or Sam since then,
although I naturally hope that they’re both happy and healthy, and that life
has treated them well.
PART 2
