The Greatest Show Never Made
Contents |
Host
no host, no voiceover
Co-hosts
Principal contributors: Rosy Burnie, John Comyn, Tim Eagle, Jane Marshall, Lucie Miller, Daniel Pope and N Quentin Woolf
Broadcast
Safe Harbour Films and Factual Fiction in association with B Good Picture Company for Amazon Prime Video, 11 October 2023 (3 episodes in 1 series)
Synopsis
In 2001, Nikita Russian came up with the idea for a reality TV series. In 2002, The Great Reality TV Swindle told the story of how that idea crashed and burned. In 2023, Amazon Prime Video revisited the story, expanding it to three 40-50 minute episodes.
The first sets the scene and covers the initial contestant call, the auditions, and the show launch, at which doubts began to surface - leading to two teams dropping out almost immediately, and the third refusing to sign their contracts and repairing to cameraman Tim's flat to ponder their options. The second shows how Russian's lies unravelled, as well as looking into his history. His childhood friend Michael Fabbri fills in some of the story of the boy he knew as Keith Gillard, and we see some of the skits they filmed together. Weaving through this episode are contributions from "Person Tracing Analyst" Tanya Hall who was asked to uncover Russian's whereabouts, leading to the big end-of-episode reveal: not only did she find him, but he's been persauded to talk for this series.
Episode three details how the remaining team turned the tables on Russian, exposing him in a story on London Tonight, but also allows the fomer Nik Russian (now N Quentin Woolf) to give his side of the story. The six team members, previously interviewed spearately, are finally reunited and we get an update on what happened to them after the show that never was. With perhaps one exception, they are broadly sympathetic to Russian who in hindsight they see as a fantastist out of his depth rather than a conman. And indeed, while Amazon categorise this as a "true crime" documentary, there is no actual crime involved.
Web links
Amazon Prime Video programme page
Pictures
Three of the contestants - Rosy, Lucie and Daniel - seen in original footage from 2002.
And here with three more, reunited in this series' final episode.Left to right: John Comyn, Lucie Miller, Rosy Burnie, Daniel Pope, Jane Marshall, Tim Eagle.
The man with the plan (that didn't come off)