A generation of British children grew up with Knightmare, the pioneering TV show inspired by roleplaying games that mixed live contestants with computer-generated dungeons. Now it's returning in a one-off episode filmed for YouTube.

The revived Knightmare will be one of the British highlights of YouTube's Geek Week on 4-10 August, which will celebrate science fiction, comics, gaming and science.

The episode has been produced by the show's creator Tim Child, and will feature comedian Isy Suttie (Peep Show) and actor Jessie Cave (Harry Potter) alongside the original show's dungeon master character Treguard.

They'll be joined by four British YouTube stars, Dan Howell, Phil Lester, Emma Blackery and Stuart Ashen, as the video service aims to showcase and cross-promote some of the British talent that's finding a thriving online audience through their channels.

More than 100 YouTube creators will be publishing themed videos for Geek Week, which is being executive-produced by multi-channel network ChannelFlip.

Content will include a celebration of Doctor Who and various superheroes; a day focusing on science and education channels; and a live broadcast from the YouTube Space in London of popular games YouTubers trying to break a selection of Guinness World Records.

Celebrities including Jamie Oliver, Rachel Riley and Brian Blessed have contributed video playlists, while another veteran TV character – Kryten from Red Dwarf – will act as a daily host pointing viewers to new videos.

"With more than half of our top 20 non-music channels dedicated to geek culture, YouTube has become a top destination for fans everywhere to create, share and watch geek content," says Danielle Tiedt, vice president of marketing for YouTube.

"We're excited to shine a spotlight on this global community during Geek Week and debut all-new videos and series created by some of our most popular channel partners."

A glance at the stats for some of the British YouTubers starring in the new Knightmare episode shows the reach that technology, science and "geek culture" is getting on YouTube.

Howell's danisnotonfire channel has just under 2m subscribers and 114.1m video views so far, while Lester's AmazingPhil channel has 1.1m subscribers and 70m views. Both joined YouTube in 2006.

Musician Blackery has 289k subscribers and 11.2m views for her channel, while Ashen's "Comedy, Technology, Idiocy" videos have attracted 368k subscribers and 77.2m total views.

Globally, channels that could fall under the Geek Week banner are hugely popular too.

Industry site Tubefilter's monthly top 100 YouTube channels chart is currently topped by Swedish gamer PewDiePie with his 10.8m subscribers and 2.1bn total views – 208.4m of which came in June 2013 alone.

Fellow games-focused channel Sky Does Minecraft (4.7m subscribers and 967.8m views) and games / sci-fi channel Rooster Teeth (5.6m subscribers and 2.3bn views) are also among the most popular YouTube channels.

Meanwhile, Machinima, which started as a channel for gaming videos, but has since diversified into a multi-channel network covering entertainment, sports and comedy, claims an audience of more than 190m people who watched more than 2.1bn videos in May 2013.

For more on Knightmare's history, read The Guardian's How we made Knightmare feature from April 2013.