The Great Reality TV Swindle
Contents |
Host
Narrator: Lisa Coleman
Broadcast
Christmas TV & Film Company for Channel 4, 3 December 2002
Synopsis
One of the most audacious game show formats of modern times was invented by Nik Russian in 2001. He would organise for three teams of ten to travel the world for a year, all accommodation and transport provided, and work for a million pounds. The team that earned the most would win £100,000 each.
After holding some tests - including baking a cake on a private island in the middle of the Thames - three teams were picked, and gathered at Waterloo station in June 2002. Expecting to be away for a full year, contestants had quit jobs and given up leases, but the reveal of the actual task led many contestants to smell a rat, and within a couple of days it became apparent that there was no commission and no money behind the show - and the supposed "producer" had no TV experience and worked part time in a Knightsbridge bookshop. One team decided to stick together, made a film, received a visit from Nik Russian and got on the London news, before slinking home in defeat.
With Christmas Films on board, some of the contestants continued to seek answers to what had gone on. Louisa Miles went to visit Russian's mum who had operated the contestant hotline - actually her home phone line - while Daniel Pope, one of the group who had appeared on London Tonight, doorstepped Russian himself, but neither got much out of their quarry and the key questions remained unanswered.
The story was told in a thoroughly bizarre one-off programme that aired in late 2002. The show included homages from the two big reality shows of the time - a Survivor t-shirt, and an actual clip from that year's Big Brother. Director Caz Gorham created a credible story, sending up the eagerness of young people to appear on television, and suggesting that not everything in these reality shows is as cut-and-dried - or as honest - as it might seem. However the general response to the show may not have been what the producers or participants had hoped for, as many viewers were left unsure whether the documentary was the true story of a hoax, or actually a hoax itself. The confusion was not helped by the imperfect attention to detail - attentive viewers would have seen the result of a lunchtime football match in a sequence stated to have taken place in the morning.
But as it turns out the story was indeed true, and was revisited a couple of decades down the line in a 2023 Amazon Prime Video series, The Greatest Show Never Made.
Theme music
Janette Mason
Trivia
Nikita Russian's real name was Keith Gillard.
One thing that many people latched onto in the "is it/isn't it real?" debate was that apparently nobody had heard of the production company, Christmas Films, before. In fact the company had existed for several years, mostly making arty short films, but also the 1999 sexuality quiz, The Staying-In Show.
See also
Web links
Variety magazine write-up (via Internet Archive)
