Celebrity Crystal Maze review - rollicking fun with Richard Ayoade
I don’t know how they filmed Celebrity Crystal Maze under Covid-compliant conditions, and honestly I don’t want to know. Let’s assume they all self-isolated in separate chambers in a specially built quarantine zone, communicating by speaker tubes and sleeping on Murphy beds that lift up to reveal a climbing wall beneath. Or whatever other happy images fill your mind while still befitting the oddball, hi-tech-Heath Robinson vibe of this oddly charming show.
Chief architect of its odd charm is whoever chose Richard Ayoade to replace Richard O’Brien in the reboot. Just as idiosyncratic as his predecessor, but with an inherently warmer, gentler manner, Ayoade still manages to add the piquant note needed to make the show come alive.
The five (“Surprisingly free”, notes their host) celebrities trying their hand at the various mental, physical and simply bizarre tasks scattered through the maze’s various zones this time around are former rugby player Gareth Thomas, Diversity dance troupe members Jordan Banjo and Perri Kiely, comedian Chris Ramsey and TV presenter Laura Whitmore. Laura is captain. How was she chosen, enquires Ayoade. She tries to explain. He listens attentively. “The word you’re looking for,” he says kindly, “is ‘default’.” She compliments him on his outfit – patterned shirt, textured suit with piping, interesting shoes. “Oh, please,” he says, looking down at himself and sighing, “we all know this is too much.”
Having gently but firmly established himself as the boss of what you would wrongly call banter, were it not for the ghost of Blackadder II whispering in your ear (“No, this is a different thing. It’s spontaneous and it’s called ‘wit’”), Ayoade lets the games commence.
There are jokes about the doorways made of hessian flaps (“We seem to have found a level”). Perri has to jump in a pool for the very first task (“That water’s not heated. We pass those savings straight on to you”) and, despite winning, is clearly not happy about being soaked from the neck down. “It does test the willingness to celebrate,” agrees Ayoade. Automatic lock-in situations abound but are skilfully evaded. And, as ever, and in much the same way that watching any of Vic and Bob’s oeuvre does, the sight of Adam Buxton’s head in a cage as a mystery game’s oracle makes one obscurely proud to be British. Ramsey succeeds thrillingly in decoding Jarhead’s riddles. “Your mind, Chris!” cries Buxton’s head. “It’s beautiful!”
Ah, the whole thing is beautiful. Especially, I think, when watched under Covid conditions at home. What greater respite could there be from the cares and woes of the real world than watching five people trying to work a ball along an undulating dragon’s spine with wooden levers (“There’s no time limit, but obviously we do have trains to catch”), or lining up pathway parts to allow a crystal to roll unimpeded towards them, and glory? Or than screaming encouragement through the screen at a man trying to depress 100 coloured buttons in the right order before the door closes impassively behind him and locks him in with his shame? Who doesn’t want to give two minutes of undivided attention to vicariously completing the vexed task of building an eight-tier house on an unsupported hinged platform with the blocks just out of reach?
The basic wholesomeness of The Crystal Maze (be it celebrity or standard edition) is often overlooked. Possibly because O’Brien’s creepy/malevolent/terrifying air (delete according to temperament/taste/age you first encountered him) is what looms largest in memories of the original. But it is, now more than ever, fine family viewing. This household even gets a heated moral debate out of the fact that it seems to be a notably simpler cohort of games provided for the celebrities than for the usual crop of contestants. But it’s Christmas and they are playing for charity, I argue. Damnable woolly liberal nonsense, argues someone else, while our child sits in the middle calling for quiet so he can hear the final tally of gold tickets as the quintet finish their eight-crystal-40-second stint in the Dome. “You made it!” exclaims Ayoade. “Just like every other team. You should be very pleased with yourselves. But not smug.”
Once the silver tickets have been deducted from the gold (this is such a vicious little stiletto jab between the ribs of generosity at the end – again, it makes me so proud to be British), the team is left with 149 of the real thing; enough to take them to the maximum prize for Stand Up to Cancer of £20,000. All’s well that ends well.
