Gladiators! Are you ready?

Yes, I think so.

I have been obsessed with the TV show Gladiators for a long time. I know this is weird, because I don’t give off a single vibe of Gladiator-obsessed-energy. I’m not an active person, I don’t like watching sports, I can’t even run anymore, because I have creaky knees that ache when its damp - but there is something about that show that makes me want to don a foam finger and chant aggressively, ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST, that takes even me, by surprise.

I recently went on the brilliant podcast, Contender Ready (hosted by the hilarious egg Jess Fostekew and UK Olympic champion Emily Campbell) to talk about it - I felt giddy afterwards, like when you stay up too late with kids from the year above on a school trip - I can’t believe other people have noticed these things too! Apollo does look like Peter Serafinowicz, Barney does look like the work experience boy who’s dad owns the factory and everyone on the production line has no respect for, Comet is surprisingly pleased she can raise her own leg every single time it happens…

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If you listened to that podcast episode, I’m sorry, I might be about to rant on about the same things, but, it was the final tonight and as even my own children got bored and drifted off to chuck a tennis ball at a wall, I was screaming, NO, MUS THIS ISN’T FAIR¹ by myself. ‘Why do you always get so stressed when it’s on?’, my eight-year-old daughter asks me, why do I? Why do I care so much?

Back in the 90s, when the US version was first shown on UK telly, I was about twelve or so, my dad used to set a VHS to record both US Gladiators and Who’s Line Is It Anyway? on a Friday night, for me and my brother to wake up and watch on a Saturday morning. I grew up to become an improviser, so clearly Who’s Line had a big effect on me, but I had relegated Gladiators, to the place of Catchphrase in my memory, just one of those weird shows I loved as a kid, but allowing it back into my Saturday night (now watching it as the adult) has made me rethink the power behind it, that I had failed to take in as a child.

I cry at every episode, of course, there’s the obvious emotional moments like contender Joe Fishburn thanking his Grandma after each win, (the woman who raised him after his mum died, when he was just a toddler), or Aniela Afsar proudly talking about how many boundaries she’s broken, (being a woman, on mainstream TV, in a hijab taking part in this kind of physical activity), but it was the contenders who lost on the way to the final that also got me - they stood at the top of the travelator, arms spread wide, imploring the crowd to see - they had worked hard, they hadn't always conquered, but their achievement was clear, for all of us to marvel at.

Working creatively - for me, writing, or acting in something, can be a slow process. People sometimes come up to you afterwards and say if they liked the thing you did - or my mum tells me, her friend Gillian didn’t think it was funny and turned it off before the adverts - but often the actual making is quiet and with writing, mainly by yourself. You didn’t sweat or run up a moving walkway trying to propel you to the floor - it felt like that, but no one wanted to watch you actually do that. Seeing the contenders, stand there and call to the crowd to applaud their losses, after all they had been through to get there, felt more tender than I had expected.

That’s how it feels, I kept thinking, to just try, even though you know, it’s going to be a hard and painful thing to do. And as the losers stood and celebrated losing, my eyes would well up, it’s the striving, regardless of whether what you’re doing is a worthwhile thing to do or not. Whether anyone will read it or watch it. That’s not what you’re here for, it’s to ask yourself, if you can do it. There is a rope and a zip wire and a balance beam to cross, but keep going my friends, you may well get there, and even if you don’t, we will applaud your attempts. (it may sound quiet in our foam hands) but you if you have tried, you will be a contender, my son, and one day you will be ready.

Mus Dumbuya, Amanda Wah, Aneila Asfar, Joe Fishburn just giving it a bloody good go (Picture: BBC/Hungry Bear Media)

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1. I am very unhappy about that move from Legend. It wasn’t offered to the women, so why did he get to do it? He was playing mind games with Mus, just a few seconds before he had to play an important event! Why do I care THIS MUCH?