Tim Child, creator



We wanted to build an actual castle with scary dungeons, but we didn't have the budget. So we constructed one using computer imagery and painted backdrops, to create a world of dragons, jesters and warlocks.

Each week, a team of four children would try to retrieve something from the dungeon. One contestant would be the "dungeoneer", while three "advisers" directed him or her from an antechamber. In reality, the complex was a single blue room we sent the dungeoneer into again and again. But to the advisers and our TV audience, it looked like a labyrinth of chambers and pits.

Every fantasy has its own grammar; I just made it up. The four quests were for the Sword of Freedom, the Shield of Justice, the Cup That Heals and the Crowning Glory. We kept our lingo simple: you tend to keep well away from conventional religious phraseology for fear of causing offence. I was influenced by JRR Tolkien, Jack Vance and TH White, particularly his book The Once and Future King. It was a little bit of Hobbitry and Arthurian legend combined, without paying too much homage to either.

People wonder why each dungeoneer wore a Helmet of Justice. It was to cover their eyes: without it, they would have known they were in an empty studio. We looked at feeding an in-helmet signal to them, but that would have forfeited the fear factor, and engagement with their team-mates.

Every adventure involved magic of some kind. We introduced "spellcasting" (making magic by spelling out simple instructions) because we wanted children to be able to spell; it was deliberate wordplay. Spells were sometimes found in clue rooms, or given as gifts after successful encounters with dungeon dwellers. Quite a lot of teams were killed off by goblins because they miscast very simple spells.

Teams were always told: "The only way is onwards. There is no turning back." There was a very good reason for that: if they turned around, there would have been nowhere for them to go but back to the green room.

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From the beginning, Knightmare was in crisis because production was terribly slow. The kids would be waiting an hour to film a scene that lasted a minute and a half. Inevitably, they lost enthusiasm and did silly things. Some teams would walk their dungeoneer off a precipice for no reason. Others would put a useless clue into their knapsack and later die in humiliating fashion because they did not have the right key to a particular door, or the right spell to dismiss a monster. They were told at the start they weren't allowed to use weapons, yet would pick up a dagger instead of the magnifying glass they obviously needed. We had a dungeoneer who tried to make friends with a goblin; it didn't work out. The gameplay was really critical path analysis. If you did the right thing, you got the right result.

At its peak, 600-1,000 teams applied every year; we could only pick 12 to 15. We had the highest viewing figures in series nine, just before Knightmare was taken off air. The problem was that our audience was ageing, and our show had almost become too sophisticated for its timeslot. There will always be hardcore fans clamouring for its return; I think it's best to let it languish in its own deep, dark dungeon.

Hugo Myatt, actor (Treguard)



One day Tim said: "Hugo, I've had this idea … We'll meet at the pub and talk." I didn't understand a word. After we did the pilot, I thought that would be the end of it. But a couple of months later he phoned and said: "Congratulations, we've got a TV series."

At first, it was literally a nightmare. I had to supply the menace as well as the avuncular guidance, because we didn't have any villains until Lord Fear came along in season five or six. I found that tricky. The kids would be trembling as I put the helmet on their head. I could tell they thought something terrible was about to happen, and that their imaginations were running wild. Of course they just couldn't see.

The show was played live, with some teams filming several episodes and others killed off after one scene. There were no retakes; anything could happen. The audience at home would sit there screaming at the screen when teams did something completely stupid. A lot of the time their advisers gave them completely conflicting instructions: one said "Sidestep right" while another was shouting "Sidestep left!". That was when you knew the poor kid in the helmet was in dire straits, and they would usually disappear down a hole quite swiftly.

Behind the scenes ... Knightmare's special effects were filmed in an empty room using blue-screen technology. Photograph: ITV / Rex Features

During gameplay I was on talkback from the director's box. Sometimes I'd be given instructions to sort out the mess. Tim would tell me to say: "Extreme warning! Life force low!" if a team had been dilly-dallying. But sometimes I'd just get: "Do something, Hugo!" You can't reply: "Like what?" You just had to say anything, which probably accounts for the glassy look in my eyes much of the time.

As time went by, we got regular actors involved, like Paul Valentine, who played the jester Motley, and Michael Cule, who played the monk, Brother Mace. They became astonishingly good at improvisation: it was stunning that they actually managed to keep the kids on track, without losing their characters.

Some of the teams were tremendous. We had a splendid team of girls who achieved a rare victory by completing their particular themed quest. The one they put under the helmet was a bit of a strider; they guided her towards a door, and she bumped straight into the blue screen. She let out an expletive we didn't think she'd know at that age. Another team who stayed in a hotel overnight ended up having a punchup. One of them came in the next morning with a lovely black eye, which took makeup some time to cover up.

I never expected to be getting fan letters 25 years later. It's a proper cult, which is marvellous.