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British children's adventure TV game show (1987–1994)

Knightmare is a British children's adventure game show, created by Tim Child, and broadcast over eight series on CITV from 7 September 1987 to 11 November 1994. The general format of the show is of a team of four children – one who takes on the game, and three acting as their guide and advisers – attempting to complete a quest within a fantasy medieval environment, traversing a large dungeon and using their wits to overcome puzzles, obstacles and the unusual characters they meet along the journey. The show is most notable for its use of blue screen chroma key, an idea Child utilised upon seeing it being put to use in weather forecasts at the time the programme began, as well as its use of 'virtual reality' interactive gameplay on television and the high level of difficulty faced by every team. Broadcast to high viewing figures throughout its original run, it garnered a cult status amongst fans since its final television episode in 1994. It was revived for a one off special by YouTube in August 2013.

Each run of the game involves a team of four children, aged around 11–16, and focuses on the same format. One member takes on the game in person, referred to as the "Dungeoneer", but are made blind to their surroundings by the "Helmet of Justice" – a headpiece that blocks their field of vision to just around their feet. The other three act as their advisers, guiding them around, giving them advice to solving puzzles, and making notes on information received. Once the Dungeoneer is ready, they are sent off on their quest, which in most series requires the team to choose which one they will undertake, whereupon the action takes place within a blue screen chroma key studio that is used to display a partly computer generated, partly hand drawn fantasy dungeon – only the viewers and the Dungeoneer's advisers can see this. In some cases, filming of a run takes place in real locations, in which the viewpoint of these scenes is done to appear to be from that of the Dungeoneer's. The rest of the team remains in the main studio fashioned as an antechamber of "Knightmare Castle", and provide instructions and descriptions of a location to the Dungeoneer, much in the same fashion of text based computer games which rely on description and commands rather than any visuals. An example of this could be that a room has a key for a locked door within, so the advisers would describe the room to the Dungeoneer and then instruct them to move towards the key, pick it up, and use it on the door to exit the room. The objective of the game is for the team to complete three levels of a specially made dungeon designed for them; each team faces a new dungeon of a different design, but with similar features recurring during a series. Each level consists of a number of rooms – some with puzzles, obstacles and challenges that have to be overcome – and a selection of inhabitants – some will help out, while others will either hinder the player unless they give them something they require, or attempt to stop them and end their game. In some cases, the team faces more than one exit, and usually must make a choice about which way to go. Every dungeon has a selection of objects, some of which will help to solve puzzles or get past certain inhabitants, while others are decoys, as well as magic spells – a single word that can be used to solve puzzles, get around hazards and dangerous inhabitants, which require an adviser to spell out the word correctly (e. g. if the spell is Light, then the adviser needs to say L I G H T). Each team is required to complete their game within a time limit, which is represented by an on screen animated life force meter for the Dungeoneer that depletes over time; the meter is only ever seen by the viewers, but the advisers receive clear hints about its status when they need to take care. Because the amount of time given is not enough, the team must get the Dungeoneer to checkpoints within the dungeon and have them pick up a food item and place it within a knapsack given to them before they begin their run, which restores the Dungeoneer's life force to full upon doing so. If the team make mistakes that allow the Dungeoneer to be attacked from minor monsters or hazards, they incur a time penalty that reduces the amount of time they have to complete the game, described as taking "damage" to their life force. If the Dungeoneer runs out of life force, the game is over; the game is also over if the team makes a bad decision and take a wrong route into a dead end, or the Dungeoneer is "killed" by an enemy character, monster or trap or "falls" into a pit. The appearance of the life force meter varied during the course of the show's history:

Up until the end of the fifth series, the meter was a computer animated image of an adventurer wearing a helmet. As life force depletes, pieces of the helmet disappears from the meter, then the skin of the adventurer, and then the skull, until finally the eyes roll past the camera. The background color of the image also changes accordingly – green when healthy (helmet), amber when moderate (skin), and red when life force is low (skull). A remake of this meter was used in the one off YouTube remake. In the sixth and seventh series, the meter was represented by an animated picture of a walking knight, which loses pieces of its armour over time to reveal a skeleton, which eventually collapses. In the final series, the meter was represented by a picture of a pie, in which the slices reappear once the Dungeoneer places food in their knapsack. If the team manages to complete all three levels, they are awarded with their prize, which changed over the years of the show's history. Unlike most other children's shows, Knightmare had no qualms over having a very high difficulty level, and as a result, only eight teams managed to win the game over its eight series. Regardless of whether a team wins or fails, they leave the show once their game is over, and a new team takes their place. This continues until the final episode of the series, whereupon the last team playing in that episode will often always be given an impossible situation that they will fail, in order to allow the series to end. Because each episode is designed to be twenty five minutes long, should a team's run exceed beyond an episode, editing is done to freeze the action towards the end, and then unfreeze at the beginning of the next episode (referred to in the series context as "temporal disruption"). Only twice in the entire series did temporal disruption coincide with the end of a quest (in both series 2 and series 6 where both teams lost). The nature of the rolling game play being condensed into 25 minute episodes meant occasionally that the start of an episode would feature a team for a very short time before they were eliminated; conversely, some teams had barely begun their quests when temporal disruption occurred.

A Saxon Knight named Treguard, or Treguard of Dunshelm, was the dungeon master and was played by Hugo Myatt for the show's eight series. Information about his supposed background can be found in the related literature (see merchandise section). During the show, it was Treguard's job to assist the dungeoneer and his team of helpers wherever possible, also explaining a team's cause of death whenever they died. At first, Treguard directed the contestants on his own. However, from Series 4, Treguard had an assistant: Pickle the elf, played by David Learner, and (from Series 7) after Pickle had "gone back to the forest", Majida, a princess and genie of Arabian descent played by Jackie Sawiris. (Majida originally claimed her name was "Daughter of the Setting Moon Whose Eyes are Like Daggers in the Hearts of Men Who Ride the Great Caravan of the Sultan".). Both assistants gave additional support to teams, in particular younger adventurers who may have been nervous at the start of their quests. During the early series Treguard was portrayed as a neutral character, most notably between Series 1 and 3. During the start of Episode 14 of Series 3 (when no team had yet completed that series' dungeon) he went as far as to say "we're celebrating an unbeaten record", apparently siding against the dungeoneers. However, from Series 5 onwards there was a clear distinction made between 'The Powers that Be' and 'The Opposition', against which Treguard became less neutral, and more inclined to aid the dungeoneers to complete their quest. Aside from Treguard, no other characters featured throughout the entire run only warlock (later wizard and then mage) Hordriss and palace jester Motley would have long runs on the show, both being introduced in season 3 and remaining until the series end. The formal division of characters between The Powers that Be and The Opposition meant that later series started to feature more developed story lines that would be hinted at in earlier quests and developed more as the seasons progressed. Examples of this include the alliance between Lord Fear and Aesandre in series 5 which backfires when she freezes the entire dungeon at the end of the season after her powers have been boosted by her ally. Season 6 saw Lord Fear attempt another alliance with Witch Queen Greystagg which she eventually rejected, leading to him summoning a Red Dragon to destroy the dungeon (which Treguard and Pickle ultimately foiled with a lightning rod that the final team of that season retrieved) but this plan also failed, leading to the destruction of Mount Fear. In season 7, the enmity between Lord Fear and Greystagg developed further after it was revealed he had destroyed her home Greystagg helps the final team retrieve a magic hammer to stop a giant troll from destroying Knightmare castle. In the final season, Greystagg had been replaced with the sorceress Maldame and both she and Lord Fear fought for control over an underwater domain called the Great Mire; Lord Fear sent another red dragon to destroy her but the ultimate outcome of this was unresolved as the final quest ended. Over the course of the series Treguard became known for his catchphrase "Ooh, nasty! ", regularly used just after a team had died. Intended only as a passing remark, this was originally an ad lib by Myatt. Actors that auditioned for the show were required to demonstrate spontaneity and flexibility occasionally a team's actions would require quick thinking by Hugo Myatt and/or the other actors in order for the game play to follow the planned path. In its early series, Knightmare lacked a single major antagonist or 'baddie'. Indeed, originally Treguard was specifically a neutral character, neither on the side of good nor evil. The closest there was to a main villain was Mogdred (portrayed by John Woodnutt), but his main duty was (according to wizard Merlin in the penultimate episode of Series 2) to "scare you into making a mistake", though he did kill two dungeoneers, one in Series 2 and another early in Series 4. In Series 5 (1991), however, changes were made. The majority of the characters were split into two sides: the righteous "Powers that Be", and the villainous "Opposition", the leader of which was Lord Fear played by Mark Knight. By this time, Treguard's stance had now fully evolved into that of a strictly good character. In 2014 Hugo Myatt lent his "Treguard" voice to the heavy metal band Evil Scarecrow's album Galactic Hunt for the track Enter the Knightmare, whose lyrics are based on the 1980s TV show.

Activision released a videogame adaptation.

On 25 November 2002, only 6 days after the Challenge repeats were confirmed, it was announced that a reformat of Knightmare was to be undertaken by Televirtual, founded by Tim Child. Known as Knightmare VR, this would use avatar technology to place the dungeoneer in a full 3D computer generated world. A £40,000 National Lottery grant for the programme was awarded in July 2003. In 2004 test images and clips continued to appear on the Televirtual website and finally on 17 August 2004, the full 13 minute pilot was posted on the Internet. The VR pilot kept a lot of the original elements that appeared in the original show such as Wall Monsters, Clue Rooms and the dark and grimy dungeon setting. Original Knightmare actors Hugo Myatt and Mark Knight reprised their roles as Treguard and Lord Fear respectively, while several additional actors (including Nick Collett and Tim Child himself) were introduced, playing new additions to the cast. The pilot introduced some new elements, including a new main host named Garstang, who was an orc. Treguard was now relegated to an avatar head who would occasionally appear to give the dungeoneer advice. The dungeoneer and all of the in dungeon characters were now fully computer generated, along with the rooms themselves, which meant that the dungeoneer could now explore much larger and grander surroundings than previously seen. All of the rooms could now be seen more thoroughly from different camera angles, an element which the original programme could not do easily due to the limits of its technology. The Helmet of Justice was no longer used, enabling the dungeoneer to now clearly see his surroundings. As a result of this, only one advisor was now needed, instead of three. Reactions to the pilot were mixed, with some saying that the lack of a Helmet of Justice and the associated "guiding" element meant a lot of the essence of the original show was lost. The new theme tune was dismissed by some as being overly "cheesy" and unrelated to the dark sense of the programme. On 10 May 2005, it was announced that the project was to be shelved, with Child saying that he had decided that Knightmare would work best under a mixture of virtual reality and the original format. In an interview with The Guardian in April 2013, Child said that although "(t)here will always be hardcore fans clamouring for (Knightmare΄s) return; I think it's best to let it languish in its own deep, dark dungeon".

A theatrical version of Knightmare was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 23 July to 15 August 2013. It opened to rave reviews and was performed in London in 2013 and 2016. The show is produced by Objective Talent Management and stars Paul Flannery, Tom Bell and Amee Smith.

In March 2014, a group comprising the cast and crew of Knightmare and the website knightmare. com launched a successful crowd funding campaign to raise money to run a Knightmare convention in the studios in Norwich where Knightmare was filmed. The convention took place at EPIC Studios in Norwich (where the original series was filmed) on 9–11 May 2014. The convention allowed visitors to play a room of the Knightmare dungeon using the same technology used in the show, as well as to meet with some of the original cast. A copy of the American pilot Lord of the Game was also shown with an introduction by Tim Child.

CharacterPlayed bySeries Treguard, the Dungeon Master Hugo Myatt 1–8, VR, YouTube Ah Wok the Chinese Merchant (character uncredited) Mark Knight 6 Bhal Shebah the Red Dragon Bill Cashmore (voice) 8 Brollachan Anthony Donovan (voice) 7 Brother Mace the Tavern Monk Michael Cule 4–5 Brother Strange the Proverbial Monk Clifford Barry 7–8 Captain Nemanor the Sailor Adrian Neil 6 Casper the Key Lawrence Werber (voice) 1–2 Cedric the Mad Monk Lawrence Werber 1–2 Doorkis the Door Monster (character uncredited) Michael Cule (voice) 4 The Gatekeeper Michael Cule 5 Granitas the Wall Monster Guy Standeven (voice) 1–2 Gretel the Maiden Audrey Jenkinson 2 Greystagg the Witch Queen Iona Kennedy 6–7 Gundrada the Sword Mistress (character uncredited) Samantha Perkins 4 Gwendoline The Green Warden Juliet Henry Massy 5 Igneous the Wall Monster (character uncredited) Edmund Dehn (voice) 2 Lillith the Sorceress Mary Miller 1–2 Lissard the Atlantian Cliff Barry 7–8, YouTube Majida the Genie Jackie Sawiris 7–8 Mistress Goody the Hag (character uncredited) Érin Geraghty 4 Mildread the Witch Mary Miller 2 Mr. Grimwold the Ogre (character uncredited) Bryan McNerney 3 Mrs. Grimwold the Hag Tom Karol 3 Pixel the Pixie Stephanie Hesp (voice) 5 Raptor the Pirate Cliff Barry 7–8 The Behemoth (character uncredited) Bryan McNerney 3 The Boatman Paul Valentine 4–5 The Giant (character uncredited) Edmund Dehn 1 The Talking Bird (character uncredited) Tom Karol (Voice) 3 Troll Guy Standeven 2 Velda the Elf Warrior Natasha Pope 3 Veruca (aka Daisy) Isy Suttie YouTube