Skip to main content

RUSSIAN ROULETTE (THE GREATEST SHOW NEVER MADE)

© Amazon Prime

You'd think they'd know by the name - Nik Russian. 

But never underestimate the ability of people to be duped - especially those obsessed with fame and fortune.

Amazon Prime's 'The Greatest Show Never Made' tells an extraordinary story of how hundreds of people in Britain responded in 2002 to ads and flyers about a new reality TV show.

The advert that appeared in The Stage read: 'New reality show seeks contestants. One year, £100,000."

© Amazon Prime

After auditions in Surbiton with cameramen, the contestants were whittled down to 30 people who were so mesmerised by the exotic would-be producer Nik Russian they gave up their jobs, relationships and hones to take part in the year long project.

But it didn't take long for the wheels to come off Russian's vehicle, for it to be revealed not as a Porsche but rather a Reliant Robin.

Gathering on a London housing estate and split into teams, the groups were informed the aim of the show/social experiment was to see if they could earn £1 million from absolutely nothing.

The teams had no money, nowhere to stay - just a group of strangers to rely on and a cameraman.

© Amazon Prime

The reality, of course, was that no such show existed.

In fact, it hadn't been commissioned.

It was just a vague concept in Nik's floppy haired head.

Some groups figured this out quickly.

'The Greatest Show Never Made,' though, focuses on one group who took a while for the penny to drop.

© Amazon Prime

One of those people was Jane Marshall, a 21 year old who had come from Manchester to take part with the blessing of her parents - although her dad was sceptical.

Lucie Miller, an employee in a carpet factory in Birmingham, was also seduced by the possibility of reality TV fame and fortune.

Daniel Pope had moved to London from the Carribbean two years earlier and was initially impressed by the smooth talking Nik.

Rosy Burnie and John Comyn also fell for it, while Tim Eagle, a part time clown (no, seriously), was recruited as a cameraman.

© Amazon Prime

Using footage of the group shot by Eagle and TV clips from the time, director Ashley-Francis Roy pulls together a jaw dropping but really imaginative three part documentary that harks back to a less cynical time.

At the turn of the millennium, Channel 4's 'Big Brother' detonated the concept of reality TV in the UK.

Ordinary people believed if they were fortunate to get on the show they would become instanfcelebrities.

Few succeeded, even if they did wind up onscreen.

© Amazon Prime

A handful like Nasty Nick Bateman, Craig Phillips, Anna Nolan, Brian Dowling, Jade Goody and Alison Hammond tasted fame that lasted beyond 'Big Brother'.

It was also an era where Channel 4's Friday late night youth show 'The Word' exploited that hunger for fame.

Sone will recall its "I'd do anything to be on TV" strand featuring twentysomethings doing gross things onscreen.

In this context, you can see in 'The Greatest Show Never Made' why fame obsessed twentysomethings might be so gullible to get involved in a show that never was.

© Amazon Prime

When their story went public, you can also understand why their naivete was ridiculed on satirical television shows like ITV's 'Harry Hill's TV Burp'.

As mind bogglingly dumb as the whole tale seems 21 years on, Roy neveryheless avoids turning it all into a documentary that exploits and mocks its interviewees.

The show also intriguingly explores the story of Nik Russian - real name Keith - and tries to track him down.

In doing so, the documentary becomes richer.

© Amazon Prime

It becomes a much more thoughtful and sensitive examination of the mistakes people make - especially in early adulthood.

Having shifted identities for much of his life, Nik is eventually tracked down with the help of a private investigator.

But will he face the people he duped? 

'The Greatest Show Never Made' doesn't seek to publicly crucify Nik.

However it sheds light on the motivation that led to him creating a reality TV show that never was.

© Amazon Prime

In between humourously reflective interviews with the would-be contestants and archive footage, Roy also recreates in vibrant Wes Anderson-style pastels Tim Eagle's flat where the contestants retreated to 21 years ago to wrap their heads around the concept of a reality show that was just a figment of Nick's imagination.

The director also peppers the show with cartoonish recreations of the lives of his interviewees.

This only adds to the discombobulating effect of a documentary miniseries that doesn't follows the path you'd expect.

But it also hammers home the air of unreality around this reality TV tale.

© Amazon Prime

'The Greatest Show Never Made' is undoubtedly extraordinarily entertaining.

It's also much more empathetic and illuminating than you'd expect it to be.

In our era of TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and social media influencers, it makes you weirdly nostalgic for simpler times when getting on terrestrial TV was all thatmattered to some.

But ot might also make you think that the explosion of reality TV was the tipping point for the kind of shallow, image obsessed society we have now.

('The Greatest Show Never Made' was made available for streaming on Amazon Prime on October 11, 2023)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FILMS OF 2024 (THE TOP TEN)

© Studio Canal, BBC Film, Protagonist Pictures, Brock Media & Arcade Pictures It was a year when  'Oppenheimer' swept the Oscars  but  Ryan Gosling stole the show with his performance of 'I'm Just Ken' . It was also the year when Saoirse Ronan once again aced her roles in two films and Cillian Murphy delivered arguably the best movie performance of his career. 2024 saw Denis Villeneuve open the door to a 'Dune' trilogy, while successful films about a Mexican drug gang leader seeking a sex change and a gay writer encountering the ghosts of his dead parents were common place when in the past they would have been unthinkable. As Pomona ranks the top 10 films it saw this year, who made the list and where are they placed? 10. THE OUTRUN (Nora Fingscheidt) There have been many movies about alcoholism over the decades but few have been as intriguing as Nora Fingscheidt's tale of a young woman coming to terms with her addiction on the Orkney Islands. Saoirse...

HOUSE OF FUN (LOL: LAST ONE LAUGHING IRELAND)

© Amazon Prime Ever wondered what the 'Big Brother' house would have been like if it was populated just by comedians? No?  Neither had I. But Amazon Prime has tried to answer that question anyway with a new comedy show 'LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland'. © Amazon Prime Originally conceived by the Japanese comic Hitoshi Matsumoyo in 2016, the show throws 10 stand-ups together in a 'Big Brother' style living room for six hours with the strict instruction that they are not allowed to laugh, crack a smile or smirk at each other's jokes or anything else. If they do, the first time they falter they get a yellow card warning. The second time, they receive a red card and are out of the game. The comedian who outlasts the others wins. © Amazon Prime Versions have been produced in Mexico, Italy, Iran, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Russia, Nigeria, Colombia and France. And with a UK version reportedly in the works, Amazon has decided to test the waters with an Irish...

TWO TRIBES (KINAHAN: THE TRUE STORY OF IRELAND'S MAFIA & GERRY HUTCH: AKA THE MONK)

  From ' Public Enemy ' to ' The Irishman ,' ' The Sopranos ' to ' This City Is Ours ,' it seems we can't get enough of tales about gangsters on the big and small screen. Ireland has also had quite a few TV shows and movies about crime gangs in its time from ' The General ' to ' Calm With Horses ,' ' Love/Hate ' to ' KIN '. Sometimes, though, the grim storles of what real life crime gangs get up to is just as fascinating. That is especially true of two recent docuseries about rival sides in a feud that spectacularly erupted on the streets of Dublin - RTE1's 'Gerry Hutch: AKA The Monk' and BBC1's 'Kinahan: The True Story of Ireland's Mafia'. The feud between the Kinahan and Hutch gangs is probably best known for the  shocking gun attack on a boxing weigh-in in Dublin's Regency Hotel in February 2016 . However the fallout claimed the lives of 18 people. There were lots of other casualties ...