Gladiators review – what we thought of the BBC reboot of this classic 90s gameshow

Your faithful columnist could barely contain her elation at the reboot of this legendary 90s game show. And it seems the supersized Gladiators were up for it, too, judging by the roaring start this new breed of athletes made.

Gladiators was a core part of my childhood. I can still vividly remember the excitement of waiting all day on a Saturday for it to be on TV in the evening.

Of racing home from days out with my family to watch it. Of getting my first-ever Merlin sticker book, based on the Gladiators show, and spending weeks nagging my mum and dad to go into every newsagents we ever passed to buy 20p packets of stickers (most of which ended up being repeats – oh, the frustration!).

The tension of The Wall, the spectacle of Atlaspheres, the craziness of Duel where it was Gladiator vs Contender, each battering the other with huge pugil sticks that looked like giant cotton buds. I was there for it all.

John Anderson’s dulcet Scottish tones calling out ‘Contenders, you will go on my first whistle. Gladiators, you will go on my second whistle’, will forever be etched in my brain. And his disciplining of the ‘naughtier’ Gladiators, such as Wolf, was light entertainment at its finest.

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No, this column hasn’t become a spot for television reviews, but it has been nice to indulge a little trip down memory lane.

And it does have some link to family life/parenting, as the resurrection of one of TV’s finest-ever outputs gave me the opportunity to introduce it to the next generation.

We sat down on Saturday evening to watch it together, as a family of four. The beauty of having both children a tiny bit older now means that the earlier Saturday evening television has become accessible to all of us.

They love a bit of Ninja Warrior, Saturday Night Takeaway, In For a Penny, The Wheel, The Masked Singer and more. I love watching all of them with them (I love good ol’ fashioned British game shows of a weekend), but watching something I’d watched as a child made it even better.

I was a bit nervous they’d hate it. Rubbish my childhood memories and chuckle at how Mummy watched such a lame show when she was younger (in the olden days, as my son sometimes likes to put it!). But thankfully, like the contenders in SkyTrak, they were hooked!

Like me, they couldn’t believe the size of the troupe of new Gladiators. Giant really is, well, a giant, and most of the others aren’t far behind. It was almost comical when they stood next to the contenders, each of them seemingly standing at least 6ft 5ins tall and just as wide.

They loved the games, the drama, cheering the contenders on during the Eliminator at the end of the show. We willed them up the travelator and whooped as they ‘crashed’ through the paper at the end.

As Saturday nights go, tucked up under blankets because it was freezing and just enjoying a programme altogether, it was pretty wholesome.

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Otherwise, this week, I have mostly been eating Christmas leftovers like a one-woman food disposal unit. How it’s possible for a household to still have six unopened boxes of chocolates come January 18 is beyond me, but I’m doing a very good job of rectifying the issue.

My quest to complete ‘Wet January’ is still in full swing, with the consumption of some of that pesky Christmas Prosecco over the weekend and a rather nice glass of sauvignon blanc while at the theatre on Tuesday, and at dinner in London on Friday.

And while I very much enjoyed my tipples, there’s a nagging voice reminding me that others are completing a challenge that I didn’t even bother to entertain. The ‘likes to win’ part of me is distressed. Perhaps I can champion the Dry February movement?… Who am I kidding, let’s just say I’ll forever be a DNS in that race – mum life is stressful! See you next week, peeps.