Gladiators (1992 British TV series)
British television game show
Gladiators is a British sports entertainment game show, produced by LWT, 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, a series of live arena shows and inspired the 1998 ITV game show Ice Warriors. 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. This Revival remains active and successful as of 2026, with a third Series (The 13th overall for the franchise) airing as of January 2026 and a fourth Series confirmed for 2027.
Format
In Gladiators, participating contestants competed in a series of physically challenging events, the majority of which saw them faring against the show's resident Gladiators, in order to win against their opponents.
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