Former The Crystal Maze presenter Richard O’Brien has announced that he is to break his presenting hiatus with a one off show called The Crystal Meth Maze, set to air on Channel 4 early next year.
O’Brien, best known for writing The Rocky Horror Picture Show and looking dashing in an evening gown, enjoyed success as the presenter of The Crystal Maze for four seasons before quitting Channel 4’s award winning game show in 1993 and has not been seen in an on-screen presenting role since.
“I am soooooooo happy to be returning to the television,” exclaimed O’Brien while throwing his hands into the air in his overly dramatic trademark fashion. “I enjoyed some of the best years of my life on The Crystal Maze and I’ve had some of the best nights of my life on crystal meth so to bring two of my great loves together for one extravaganza is a real pleasure for me.”
“We’ll be following The Crystal Maze blueprint of having people perform ridiculously hard and demoralising tasks for incredibly shitty prizes,” continued the most recognisable bald man in TV history. “Only instead of using outgoing, sporty types we’ll be using reclusive meth addicts, which should make for really good television.”
“One slight difference from the original show is that the addicts will be working as individuals rather than on a team,” continued O’Brien. “They just don’t seem to have a team work ethic and pitting them against each other really seems to bring out the worst and best in them.”
“We’ll have the usual skill, mental, physical and mystery games,” continued the cross dressing host, “so you’ll get to see meth heads in all sorts of fun quirky scenarios. For example, one of my favourite mental games sees the addicts asked to make a choice between feeding their kids and smoking meth, the mental anguish it causes them really does make for compelling viewing.”
“The crescendo of the show will see any meth heads who are still standing enter a carbon copy of the Crystal Dome, only instead of collecting gold and silver tokens they’ll be beating the shit out of each other for crystals of meth that will be pumped into the room,” he added. “And when there’s one left, they’ll be declared the winner and for a secondary prize they’ll also get to keep the contents of all the other meth head’s pockets.”
The Crystal Meth Maze could be just the tip of the iceberg for nineties, drug themed game show remakes, with plans for The Ketamine Factor (The Krypton Factor), Heroin Addicts (Telly Addicts) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Whose Line Is It Anyway?) already underway.
