Gladiators (1992 British TV series)

Gladiators
Image containing the word 'GLADIATORS' in all upper-case letters stylised in a cinemascope-type format, which is partly overlaying a capital letter 'G' stylised in an inverse triangle.
GenreGame show
Based on
American Gladiators
by
  • Dann Carr
  • John Ferraro
Presented byUlrika Jonsson
John Fashanu
Jeremy Guscott
Narrated byJohn Sachs (voiceover)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series13
No. of episodes133
Production
Production locationsNational Indoor Arena, Birmingham, England
Camera setupmulti-camera
Running time60 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production companyLWT Productions in association with The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Original release
NetworkITV
Release10 October 1992 (1992-10-10) –
1 January 2000 (2000-01-01)
Related
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Gladiators is a British sports entertainment game show, produced by London Weekend Television, presented by Ulrika Jonsson and narrated by John Sachs, and originally broadcast on ITV. Based upon the American television programme American Gladiators, the show sees four contestants, split into pairs by gender, compete in a series of physically challenging events against the show's resident "Gladiators", before competing against their respective contestant in one final event. Each series functions like a tournament, with the winner of that year's competition being crowned champion for their respective gender.

During its original run, between 10 October 1992 and 1 January 2000, Jonsson presented the programme alongside two different co-presenters, John Fashanu and Jeremy Guscott, with Sachs providing commentary on each event, and John Anderson serving as referee for each event. The show proved popular for ITV, spawning a media franchise with other countries, a children's spin-off titled Gladiators: Train 2 Win, merchandise, and a series of live arena shows. Despite its popularity, the show courted several controversies during its history, particularly with some of its Gladiators, while falling viewing numbers led to the programme being cancelled after eight series, including five special series.

Gladiators has since received two revivals after its conclusion. The first revival was created in 2008 for Sky1, running for two series but with changes to the format. The second revival, which began airing on 13 January 2024 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, returned to the original format with a brand new set of Gladiators.[1]

  1. ^ "Gladiators BBC: Release date, cast and hosts for reboot". Radio Times. Retrieved 13 January 2024.