It is Saturday night and you are sitting cross-legged on the floor with a ham and pineapple oven pizza and a big cold glass of supermarket-brand cola. You are warm with the fresh clean glow of a bath and your nose is pressed close to the TV for Gladiators: Ulrika Jonsson’s otherworldly charisma, that barking Scottish referee, oiled biceps and unitards, Wolf. Or: hold on, wait, no. It’s 2024 now. Gladiators is back (Sat, 5.50pm, BBC One), and it still rules: Bradley Walsh’s otherworldly charisma, Mark Clattenburg as the referee, intricately tattooed biceps and unitards, Viper. Time has passed and the pizza has gone cold but Gladiators remains the same. Some things in the world are good.
I have to say that, despite the disorientating move from ITV to BBC, the latest Gladiators reboot (there was one on Sky in 2008 but we don’t need to talk about that) is a phenomenal success, a modern update with just the right portion of nostalgia baked in. The athletes all have good old-fashioned Gladiator names – Athena, Sabre, Apollo, Bionic – and jog into the foam-finger-and-flashbang-filled arena in perfect 90s-style tracksuits. The Travelator is back, as are the best old games – Duel! Hang Tough! – as well as some new twists. Footy commentator Guy Mowbray is on comms. The whole thing absolutely zips along. The contenders are great and bustling with personality – Britain has spent the last three decades creating an army of cheerful gym rats, and they are ready to show how good they are by running up a hill that is trying to run against them. But wow, watching it is like being transported back in time: I feel as if I could get a Freddo for 10p, or get suspended from school for bleaching my hair like Gazza, or care about Blur. It’s exhilarating.
