Upping the ante for Gladiators series two

When you’re bringing back a show like Gladiators, there’s a fine balance between giving the audience the nostalgia they want and providing something new.

Deliver too much nostalgia and they say, “Hold on a second, this is exactly like it was before.” But if you change it too much, they go, “Why have you messed with it so much? You’ve ruined it.” Treading that line is a very delicate and skilled process, but I believe we and MGM did it really well with series one of Gladiators.

All the middle-aged parents who were children when the show was on TV back in the 1990s are now able to show it to their kids and have that shared experience. It’s incredible to be able to create something so precious for families up and down the country.

When we cast the gladiators, we didn’t assign them roles and ask them to act into them – trust me, Viper is a scary person in real life. We all like him, obviously, but he doesn’t say a lot and when he comes in a room, people are like, “Whoa, who’s this dude?”

Legend is very confident, and Sabre is a fierce competitor with an edge that makes her want to win so badly. We took all the characteristics they already had and just amplified them. And in series two, we’ll be bringing that out even further – they’ll still be the established characters we love, but we’ll turn up the dial even more.

You’ll see that particularly in the locker-room footage – we’ve learned heaps from series one. In the first series, we set out to replicate the behind-thescenes football and Formula One documentaries on the streamers. However, our gladiators didn’t really understand what was needed from them in those moments – they did well and it worked, but not amazingly well. Now they’ve watched it, they’ve seen themselves, they know that if something great happens in the locker room, it’s going to go out on air. So they’re more prepared for it.

We’re also ramping up the drama by getting them in that locker room immediately after the event. As a result, we capture people losing their temper, with themselves, or each other. They throw stuff in a rage or have arguments. They are real in-the-moment emotions and reactions – exactly like half-time in a football game. It becomes almost like EastEnders, a mini soap opera is happening in the locker room and you’re getting valuable insights into their personalities alongside the action on the Sheffield Arena floor.

Another thing we realised in the first series is that we had to make two huge shows: the live show in the arena for the crowd, then the actual TV show. For me, the greatest stories and those spine-tingling narratives come out of big, live, sporting events. With that in mind, we’ve upped the ante on the arena show, so it feels even more like a huge live sporting, theatrical performance, and I think that will come across to the audience at home.

Tougher contenders

We are also introducing two brand new gladiators this series. One of the surprises from last year was that we needed more gladiators, because of injury or illness. The gladiators and contenders are maximising every muscle in their bodies and it’s so easy to pull, tear or strain something in the process.

We felt we needed more from their characters too, to help create that narrative and the drama we crave in the show. We’ve filled those spots and I think the audience is going to love the gladiators even more.

The contenders are definitely tougher and stronger this year, and they have much more backchat. It’s really exciting to watch.

At the same time, we also learned that everyone loves the David and Goliath competition between the gladiators and the contenders. The show works best when a contender is also a doctor or someone in the army, a firefighter or a nurse as their day job, rather than someone who runs their own gym or works primarily in fitness and sport.

Upping the tech game

We’re introducing new games this series – we wanted to bring back a big new game from the original series, Atlaspheres, which fans of the old show will love, and one totally new game, Unleash, which is futuristic and super exciting. The arena audience go wild for it.

We also wanted to convey how physically demanding the competition is, so we’ve brought in head cams – when playing The Edge, being on the suspension bridge in Collision, or on a beam in the Eliminator, you can now see gladiators or contenders fall or get hit from their own point of view.

“We’re in a landscape of super-sized gameshows, but the best ones always come from the most simple, clear format ideas”

We’ve also enhanced their mics, so you can hear more of an impact or the heavy breathing of the contenders. This added technology has made the show even better.

We’re now in a landscape of super-sized gameshows, but I think the best ones always come from the most simple, clear format ideas, that the audience can understand and really get behind. And it is tricky right now – every single show bar The Traitors isn’t rating as well as it once was.

The success of the first series enabled us to be really confident in what we’re producing for this second outing. We’ve made it bigger, more varied and even more of a spectacle. All we can do now is keep our fingers crossed and see what happens.

• Gladiators airs at 5.50pm on Saturdays on BBC1