I frequently discuss contemporary hunks – on Love Island, Reacher, Room to Improve – in this column, and hunk connoisseurs often say to me, “Patrick, you are a highly respected hunk documentarian, but what of the hunks of yore?” or, “Patrick, your work is deeply valuable to society, but you speak rarely about historic and prehistoric hunks,” or “Patrick, that colour does wonders for your eyes, but young people are growing up with no knowledge of historical hunkiography. Perhaps you should address this in your beloved TV column.”
With this in mind, when I heard there was to be a BBC One reboot of 1990s hunk-ridden ITV phenomenon Gladiators, I was very excited. Gladiators is a show in which members of the public are assigned tasks to carry out while large male and female hunks in armless and legless onesies, like babies wear, swing about on ropes and hit them with padded weapons.
The tasks aren’t things like “filing” or “photocopying” or “presenting a PowerPoint presentation to the board”, because in that context having large men and women swinging about and hitting you with padded weapons would be quite annoying (although it would also potentially be an interesting television programme). Instead, the tasks being undertaken are things such as “running about”, “jumping over things” and “hanging from stuff”. You know, the things you have in the “skills” section of your CV.
The show starts with the empowering theme tune. “Can you match the strength of the Gladiators?” sings a husky-voiced rock gentleman. “Do you have the fire within you? Do you have the heart of a lion? Do you have the power in your soul?”
Doctor Odyssey’s core message: just imagine Pacey from Dawson’s Creek holding you tight and saying, ‘Shhh, it’s okay’
Rivals: The thrusting bum is intercut with spurting soap and overflowing champagne. We are in safe, if filthy, hands
The 2 Johnnies – what you get if you feed Ant and Dec a Tayto sandwich after midnight – are taunting us now
Patrick Freyne: Where does Love in the Country find its taciturn Irishmen? I thought they had gone from this isle, like elk and shame
These are all things my editor says to me in the pursuit of journalistic excellence, so I can relate.
The garish purple set, complete with erupting plumes of flame and a baying mob of families, is in the British city of Sheffield – the ready supply of people who wish to don leotards and battle hunks probably speaks to Britain’s industrial decline. The presenters are quizshow guru Bradley Walsh and his son, Barney, who is sometimes referred to as “Barns”, presumably because he loves barns. Everyone is a nepo baby nowadays. And Britain, in particular, has reverted to a feudal society in which all are doomed to do what their parents did before them: King Charles, Dani Dyer, Little Ted from Play School, Barney Walsh; they are all trapped.
A contestant named Myles then faces a gladiator who is actually named Giant, who looks like a horse in a onesie standing on his hind legs and mocking the feebleness of man
“Papa, I dream of being an asset manager at a midsize regional financial institution,” I imagine infant Barns saying to his father, grimy with soot from the television mills.
“No, my child. That’s not for the likes for us,” says Bradley, handing him the dust-covered microphone passed down from his father before him. “You’ll toil with me down the Gladiator arena and like it.”
And so Bradley and Barney stoically introduce us to this week’s contestants, who have hobbies such as mountain-biking or football or doing weights. None of them says, “Well, Bradley, on my days off I like to binge-watch YouTube videos while eating an obscene amount of cheese.”
Instead they say things such as, “It doesn’t matter how big you are. It doesn’t matter how strong you are. As long as you give it all you’ve got, there’s no limit to how far you can go.” This is, of course, scientifically untrue and a terrible lesson for children who are already following their dreams in epidemic numbers. If I was on that show I’d be more aware of my responsibilities to the younger generation and would say things such as, “Your parents are right. Get a job in the bank and turn your dream into a hobby,” and, “Remember, the world also needs people who stolidly plug along.”
We are introduced to the Gladiators. They have cool names like Phantom, Legend and Viper, (also, coincidentally, the names of my nephews). When each enters the arena, an announcer reads their vital statistics and the individual gladiator does a little dance and strikes a pose. Some prowl like jungle cats, some mime firing arrows, many stand legs akimbo, in a power pose. If I was on Gladiators my name would be something like Lump or Wheeze, my vital statistics would come with a binder of doctors’ notes and my “little dance” would be falling over with a grunt. Nonetheless, like most viewers of Gladiators I still believe I would do very well on the television programme Gladiators.
Later we see Finley, Myles and the female competitors Tasha and Kerry attempting to cross a number of suspended hoops using only their arms while a vicious hunk chases them and tries to give them a leg hug (is this “tennis”?)
In the first event of the day a man called Finley stands on a podium high off the ground facing a gladiator named Nitro, who is standing on another podium. Each of them carries a huge padded stick that looks like a cotton bud but for a giant. However, they are not there to clean the ears of a giant. No, each must try to knock the other man off the podium and on to a padded surface that resembles a children’s play area. I don’t know much about sport, but I think this might be called “golf”. Nitro hits Finley until he falls over. A contestant named Myles then faces a gladiator who is actually named Giant. He is huge. He basically looks like a horse in a onesie standing on his hind legs and mocking the feebleness of man. Myles almost instantly falls face-forward off the podium, a move he stole from me.
Later we see Finley, Myles and the female competitors Tasha and Kerry attempting to cross a number of suspended hoops using only their arms while a vicious hunk chases them and tries to give them a leg hug (is this “tennis”?); there’s a game where a contestant must run 30 metres while being beaten with soft weaponry (is this “Gaelic football”?) and a final challenge in which each contestant must race traversing beams, nets, zip lines and moving walkways (is this “darts”?) even though nobody is chasing them and they could just get the bus home if they wanted.
My favourite event, however, involves the contestants running across a small bridge with a ball while trying to avoid a phalanx of swinging hunks on ropes. I believe this game is called “life”. And who among us has not had their whole day ruined by a swinging hunk? That said, at one point, when hapless Myles comes a cropper, the announcer says, “It looks like Steel used his backside to bash Myles in the face and knocked him off balance.” So it’s possible that I’m wrong and that this game is called arseball.
Anyway, it is safe to say that it was a very good idea to reboot Gladiators and that a good time was had by everyone concerned. And even though each of us watching would have done far better than this week’s competitors against the gladiators had we not been too busy sitting watching Gladiators, we applaud their service.
