Knightmare Childrens ITV

 If you remember Knightmare, you must be as old as me and watched the same tv shows! 

I remember running out of school on a Friday afternoon- safeguarding children’s welfare was pretty lax by modern standards- jumping into the car and begging my mum to get me home as quick as possible…. Just in time for Knightmare. 

Had I waited all week for this show? Maybe. Am I getting overexcited about this show as a 38 year old man? Quite possibly. But I do remember Knightmare being the shizzle. 

Set in Middle Ages England, presided over by Treguard- a man who looked suspiciously like Stephen Fry but wasn’t- Knightmare was a computerised science fiction game show set 500 years into the past. 

You had to complete mini challenges and puzzles in order to progress to the next room.

The twist was that the person in the ‘game’ was wearing a sodden style helmet which completely covered their eyes. Thus they had to be guided by their team which was usually four nerds from Birmingham pushing their specs up their nose whilst ordering their hero to ‘turn ninety degrees to your roight…’

I had no idea what degrees were

‘Greetings travellers…’ was a typical introduction by Treguard- played not by Stephen Fry as I thought, but by Hugo Myatt as seen below. 

When the show aired in 1987 on Children’s ITV, children’s television had never seen anything like it. 

The computerised graphics made it appear as though the traveller on their ‘quest’ was actually inside the game and fried the brains of British 80s kids… myself included. 

The helmet the travellers wore on their Knightmarish quest was harrowing enough for my young tender eyes- a wooden helmet that covered the eyes, with horns protruding from the sides. The cries from the team of ‘right, right, RIGHT… no STOP!!!’ Before falling to their ‘death’ and being dragged from the game by Treguard himself. 

I was truly mesmerised and fearful of Knightmare all at once. It never for one second entered into my tiny brain that Treguard was actually played by an actor. I thought these quests through the dungeon were real. 

A little part of me genuinely thought a child had perished when they died on the game. All of this was complimented by Treguard’s catchphrases- Enter stranger, and ooooo nasty added a lick of terror to proceedings too. 

There’s no doubt Knightmare was a classic kids show and I’d love to see them repeated but that is doubtful as current tv executives have their heads stuffed so far up their backsides it would be impossible to hoist them out. 

Knightmare was considered to be one of the best children’s tv shows and you’ll get no argument from me on that score. It ran from 1987 to 1994 featuring over 100 episodes. 

Some brilliant teams did complete their quest but not many. I remember seeing only one complete this feat. It was a high level of competition and Treguard only picked the best.