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Behind the scenes as The Crystal Maze films in Bristol
A familiar giant crystal dome is being polished ahead of its return to British television with a celebrity special of The Crystal Maze on Friday.
But fans should be warned that it’s not exactly the same dome as before. In fact, the entire show has undergone quite the makeover, with the new Channel 4 series being filmed at The Bottle Yard Studios in Hengrove.
Charged with the task of stepping into the mighty leather boots and leopard-skin jacket of ex-presenter Richard O’Brien is writer, actor and comedian Richard Ayoade, best known for starring in The IT Crowd.
is needed now More than ever
Richard Ayoade and the crystal dome
However, rather than donning O’Brien’s leopard-skin jacket, Ayoade has commissioned a custom-made set of coloured corduroy suits to bring his own flavour to the game.
It is unknown whether this is what he wore every morning as he cycled along Whitchurch Lane to the former bottling plant which has become one of the UK’s most sought-after television and film studios.
On a recent visit to The Bottle Yard, Bristol24/7 took a guided tour through the new set with exec producer Neale Simpson, which begins in the sinister Industrial Zone.
Mist is rising from a pit of questionable, bubbling sludge, and there are blinking red lights and ominous hazard tape everywhere, as we make our way down a rickety metal staircase where Simpson introduces us to a game in which contestants have to memorise codes to get in and out of a dingy, metal cell before laying their hands on a time crystal.
The Industrial Zone
An army-style crawl through a tiny tunnel later, and we find ourselves outside the magnificent wooden gates of the torch-lit Medieval Zone, which is where Jessica Hynes (Spaced) is stationed as a knight who takes her job slightly too seriously.
Hayes is there to further confuddle contestants with difficult riddles in the style of the original series’ fortune-teller character, Mumsey.
The gates swing open and we walk down a corridor, more torches aflame, where we are introduced to a game of skill involving tottering over murky, watery depths on not-so-stable planks of wood – that then start moving and, yes, disappearing.
There’s also a game that involves delicately balancing fruit on the branches of a tree without making it fall over in order to unlock the box where the time crystal hides.
The Medieval Zone
Even cult Crystal Mazers will be surprised by what the new series has to offer. It’s nothing short of total and utter dedication that the team at Channel 4 dreamt up 41 entirely new games, still divided into the familiar themes of physical, skill, mystery and mental.
Our Medieval endeavours over, it was time to go to the Future Zone, which is totally unrecognisable to viewers of older series after its drastic twenty-first-century sprucing by original set designer James Dillon (The Mighty Boosh).
It could be a Doctor Who set for the love that’s gone into it. It’s all white, shining services and retro-futuristic computers, complete with the tour de force, a circular control station that rotates.
At this point, it’s time for another of our team to test their abilities in a game that involves crossing a room by using spinning, planet-like orbs suspended from the ceiling as stepping stones, fetching the crystal from the other end, then making their perilous way back. More than once, they nearly hit the floor.
The Future Zone
Emerging on the whole unscathed from the Future Zone, we come face-to-face with a larger-than-life chemistry lab where on the Channel 4 show, Adam Buxton (The Adam and Joe Show) will appear as a head in a jar creatively called “Jarhead”.
Buxton, like Hayes, can offer bonus time crystals to contestants who have their critical thinking hats on.
Last but by no means least, we enter the Aztec Zone, with its towering pyramids, vast sandy dunes and totem poles.
It’s much bigger than you would expect, and Simpson watches, amused, as the bunch of journalists he is shepherding skitter excitedly around the place.
The Aztec Zone
Simpson’s love for The Crystal Maze, and his enthusiasm at being the man at the helm for resurrecting it, is palpable. And the public, it seems, are just as enthusiastic.
The new show received a whopping 30,000 applications of which just ten small groups were selected, who will complete 10 games before proceeding to the spanking new crystal dome.
Unlike previous series, the contestants already know their fellow team members. One group appearing in the new series are an AC/DC tribute band; another, a group of friends who met on jury service.
Our last stop off is, of course, the mighty crystal dome – shinier and more LED-heavy than ever. Perhaps it’s one of the few elements of the original cult 90s series that didn’t change too much because it had no need to.
Will you start the fans, please!
All photos courtesy of Channel 4
The Crystal Maze begins on Channel 4 at 9pm on Friday, June 23
Read more: The Hollywood of Hengrove
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