TV producer Ben Spiteri tells us how Knightmare inspired his interactive gameshow for youngsters, Spy School.
It starts in a pub, as most good things do. Ben is fizzing with energy. In TV, a fast-moving industry, you need to be alert and ahead of the game.
He's worked on a variety of kids' and adults' TV and comedic entertainment. But as passionate as he is about his upcoming work, he is equally enthusiastic about the past and his influences.
As soon as we turn to Knightmare, he is effervescent about the show he grew up with.
"Some of it is hammy, as you might expect, but so much of It holds up so well today," he muses. "I can't imagine how incredible it was to make at the time."
For a show that was stretching the limits of technology in its day, Knightmare still impresses industry professionals. And we're now reaching full circle, as some of those that idolised Knightmare as children are now the creators and producers of today.
Ben's show, Spy School, shares some core characteristics with Knightmare. A pair of youngsters pit their knowledge and mental agility against a themed quest to thwart an evil overlord called Goldfist (played by Steve Furst).
They are supported by a Q-style character in the boardroom (Agent J) and a field agent (Agent L) who acts on their intelligence.
The tasks are quite stretching, and teams are not always successful. Some of them manage to overcome adversity to win the episode; some either don’t succeed or fail to 'graduate'.
This difficulty is an unapologetic hark back to Knightmare when failure was almost guaranteed.
"You're incredibly proud of the episodes when there's a bright team and they win, because you always want to see what the best looks like," says Spiteri.
"On the other hand, there's also glory in defeat, because you want to know that you set a challenge that really tests people and doesn't gift them anything."
"Still convincing"
Unlike Knightmare, which transformed a large blue void into an expansive dungeon environment, Spy School takes us outside, to a lot of familiar London landmarks.
The British Museum, the National History Museum, Charing Cross Station, and Stamford Bridge Stadium are among the list.
Fittingly, Bletchley Park, the former home of world-war codebreakers, is among the game's venues. It even gets inside the Houses of Parliament.
Conversely, it’s the 'antechamber' (known as 'headquarters') where technology is deployed, and where the various tasks take place.
But the most interesting part of our discussion falls around 'rolling' gameplay.
For Knightmare, this allowed each quest to vary in length, fulfilling creator Tim Child's vision of an adventure game rather than simply placing youngsters inside a video game.
One of the criticisms levelled against the French and Spanish adaptations of Knightmare is the formulaic quest-per-episode approach, which seems to be precisely what Child wanted to avoid.
Spy School is also single-episode format, but the adventure element is important to what Spiteri was looking for.
"To look back at Knightmare, you'd think the suspension of disbelief would have been quite hard to achieve," he says. "But the artwork is so much better than what you would have experienced on a console. It felt immersive then. It still does.
"It's still convincing. That's the key. And making something feel convincing is always very satisfying.
"What we've done with Spy School is try to build some suspense into real-world settings. Anything is possible if you can make it believable. I think we've done a good job."
Where is the future?
The trajectory for kids' television is looking bleak. The closure of CITV in September 2023 after 40 years feels like the end of an era.
Yet, we still all want to ask the same question: could Knightmare ever make a return? Is there still an industry for kids' TV in newer platforms, or are we leaving that behind for good?
Surely there's no better person to ask than a producer of a children's show for ITV.
"It's a tough one," Spiteri admits. "Certainly, British terrestrial TV feels unlikely to pump the kind of money needed into shows like Knightmare or Spy School in the current climate.
"That said, the money and production values on the bigger streaming platforms is immense," he adds.
"With production companies desperate to develop internationally selling IPs, perhaps we'll see a Disney+ or Amazon pick up a narrative-based game show that captures the imagination of kids all around the world. We'll then all be back to chasing 'the next one'."
Spiteri believes the more tantalising question is less 'will these shows return', rather 'what will they look like?'
"Knightmare running on the Unreal Engine, or Spy School with AI or AR integration..." he ponders. "Now that's something to dream about."
