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The Crystal Maze / Meth / Myth.



One thing The Crystal Maze proved is that it's never easy to complete a task with a group of people watching from a window, shouting dubious advice.

Appearing on the show must have been an exercise in patience. I would have been just seconds into my first game before screaming at the other contestants to 'SHUT THE FUCK UP'. Either that, or I'd have crouched in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably.

Completing a brainteaser is never simplified with an audience, particularly one that insists on stating the bleeding obvious. It’s worse when you know that no-one had met before filming. They're not friends egging each other on, but strangers, hell-bent on securing an adventure holiday. It’s survival of the fittest. Weak links had to be sniffed out quickly.

(Did the winners all go on holiday together? Imagine the awkwardness.)

All that unhelpful shouting must have made it difficult to concentrate. You’d also have to blank out Richard O’Brien’s harmonica playing and constant references to ‘Mumsy’ (series 1-4), or distract yourself from trying to remember the name of the band Ed Tudor-Pole used to be in (series 5-6).

I wonder if O’Brien and Tudor-Pole ever meet up to swap Crystal Maze stories. Perhaps Murnaghan and Vine do the same about Eggheads. 

I applied to appear on the kids’ Crystal Maze Christmas Special. I never heard back. I'm still bitter.

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