Children’s games, death by ink and a multimillion jackpot: The world of the Squid Game reality TV show

Published

2 years ago

November 22, 2023

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Reality TV has undergone plenty of changes in the last decade – from the end of stalwart Noughties shows, the much-needed emphasis on duty of care towards participants, and the genre’s pipeline to social media influencing.

Now Squid Game: The Challenge has landed on our screens and turned trusted formats upside down again.

Some 456 contestants from across the globe compete in children’s games based on Netflix‘s smash-hit South Korean thriller for a $4.56m jackpot (£3.64m) – thought to be the largest single cash prize ever in a television show.

From the start, the show proved controversial after three contestants received medical treatment after the game Red Light, Green Light was filmed in Bedfordshire during a cold snap in January.

Executive producer Tim Harcourt, creative director at Studio Lambert, said the team had taken “all the appropriate measures” before filming.

“Some people anonymously were disgruntled and annoyed that they had spent a lot of time playing that game in the cold and then were eliminated. And that’s understandable.”

But he says the challenging conditions were to be expected with such a massive jackpot.

“It is $4.56 million and Netflix is never just going to give that away easily.”

And with such a massive prize comes massive responsibility for the producers.

John Hay, chief executive of The Garden production company, said the team was “absolutely scrupulous – doubly so, given the size of the prize, about judging who moved and who hadn’t [in the Red Light, Green Light game].

“We had a whole team of adjudicators behind the scenes,” he said.

“These were people independent of us from a different company, trained lawyers, who would check those movements and we had those people with us all the way through the entire series.”

Hay said the jackpot prize was one of the most significant decisions that Netflix made about the show because “it just flips the whole thing”.

“Instead of being driven by the fear of death, it’s driven by the sort of scale of this opportunity.

“It turns out that’s just as powerful a motor for stories as in the drama. The people who went into that set lived in these six soundstages. The ones who made it to the finals were there for 16 days.

“They were chasing this huge prize. It felt like the stakes felt suitably high. And I think that drove some of the reactions to it in the course of the game,” Hay said.

And those reactions were sometimes powerful. The show feels more extreme and more challenging than any recent reality show game. One contestant appeared to be close to vomiting from the pressure of making a decision that would ultimately lead to his elimination.

“We had to accept that that immersion [in the game] would put people under quite a lot of pressure and it could be stressful. And that’s something that we would talk about [with contestants],” Harcourt said.

“We really take care as they exit the game to chat to them and allow them to process everything that they felt and to realise that it’s all fine now and that was a game and they were playing under pressure.

“Those are conversations that continue with the contributors not just straight after the game, but six months after,” Harcourt said, adding that the show’s welfare team is in touch with the contestants now as the show is airing.

Squid Game remains the most popular Netflix series of all time and was streamed by 111 million users in the first 28 days after its release in September 2021.

Hay, whose company The Garden has created shows such as 24 Hours in A&E and Emergency, said Squid Game’s success was both a blessing and a burden.

“Starting from a drama as brilliant and as successful as Squid Game is a huge head start in that there’s already a huge number of people interested and it’s very unusual in being a drama that’s based around a game.

“It’s an ingeniously designed game. There’s a real singularity and originality of the vision in the drama. There’s a world [with] a very distinctive sort of tone and visual style.

“But in another sense, it sets the bar unbelievably high. We knew that we had to match the world. We had to play in the spirit of the game.”

The number of contestants was also a huge logistical challenge. More than 80,000 people applied to be on the show with Hay saying it was a “mammoth task” to whittle it down to just 456 contestants.

“Of course, without a script, we had to find ways of creating the conditions in which some of those dynamics [of the drama] could play out without being able to actually know who our heroes were from the start and then write their storylines,” Hay said.

Harcourt, who has produced other reality shows including The Traitors, The Circle and Naked Attraction, said filming the 456 contestants was “the biggest creative challenge” of the show.

Another challenge was how to eliminate people from the game. In the drama, contestants are immediately killed which led to some creative discussions as to how to adapt it for the reality TV show.

“Quite early on we came upon the idea of the dye pack, which is something that every contestant wore underneath their white t-shirt,” Harcourt said.

“We arrived at black ink. There was a taste issue with blood.”

“We went through a lot of testing to get the dye colour right, the type of dye right. Even the nozzle that sprays the ink out through their T-shirt had to have such a force that it would actually show on that T-shirt and also that they would actually feel it go off so that everybody knew that they were out of the game.”

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So is this new kind of supersized reality TV show with massive stakes the future? Maybe, Harcourt and Hay said.

“I definitely think there will be these big reality shows that broadcasters or streamers will undertake,” Harcourt said.

“Unscripted television is still cheaper to make than some dramas and it can call in just as big an audience when it’s done brilliantly and it’s successful and the audience love it.

“So I don’t think we’re about to see a spate of 100 of these shows being made. But I think that some of these shows that feel bigger in execution and maybe bigger in concept will become a trend.”

Squid Game: The Challenge is on Netflix from today

Entertainment

Canada bans Kneecap from entering country as rappers threaten legal action

Published

7 hours ago

September 19, 2025

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Canada bans Kneecap from entering country as rappers threaten legal action

Canada has banned rap group Kneecap from entering the country for allegedly ‘glorifying terrorist organisations’.

The trio, who were due to play four concerts in Canada next month, were accused of promoting hate and violence by the country’s Liberal government.

Kneecap have subsequently threatened Canada’s parliamentary secretary for combatting crime, Vince Gasparro, with legal action.

Mr Gasparro said in a video on X that members of the group had been deemed ineligible to enter the country because of actions and statements that violate Canadian law.

He also accused the group of amplifying political violence and publicly displaying support for terrorist organisations, including Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Hamas in Gaza.

Mr Gasparro said: “Advocating for political violence, glorifying terrorist organisations and displaying hate symbols that directly target the Jewish community are not protected forms of expression and will not be tolerated by our government.”

Commenting on the X post, Kneecap said: “Your comments about us are wholly untrue and deeply malicious. We will not accept it.

“No member of Kneecap has been convicted of ANY crime in ANY country EVER.”

The band added: “We have today instructed our lawyers to initiate action against you. We will be relentless in defending ourselves against baseless accusations to silence our opposition to genocide being committed by Israel.

“When we beat you in court, which we will, we will donate every cent to assist some of the thousands of child amputees in Gaza.”

Canada’s immigration ministry did not immediately respond to a request for more details.

This is the latest in a series of controversial incidents involving the Belfast-based band.

During the Glastonbury Festival in June, Kneecap‘s frontman Liam Og O Hannaidh, known by his stage name Mo Chara, accused Israel of committing war crimes. Israel has denied the accusation.

Kneecap have previously said its members do not support Hamas or Hezbollah.

They added that they condemn “all attacks on civilians, always”.

In May, Mr Ó hAnnaidh was charged with a terrorism offence in Britain after allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah during a London gig in November 2024.

He denied the allegation, saying it was thrown on stage during the performance.

Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring will rule on whether he has the jurisdiction to try the case later this month.

Kneecap were scheduled to play four Canadian concerts in October, two in Toronto and two in Vancouver, according to its website.

Entertainment

‘Bad boys of magic’ Penn & Teller inducted into Magic Circle after 50 years of being barred

Published

15 hours ago

September 19, 2025

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'Bad boys of magic' Penn & Teller inducted into Magic Circle after 50 years of being barred

Penn & Teller have finally been inducted into the Magic Circle – after 50 years of being denied membership.

Rock stars of magic, Penn & Teller found fame in the mid-1980s, earning them fans on both sides of the pond, but their habit of explaining their tricks to the audience also earned them magical disapproval.

The duo were famously barred from the Magic Circle for exposing their tricks as part of their act, flying in the face of the organisation’s belief in keeping magical secrets from the public.

Formed in 1905, the Magic Circle currently has around 1,750 members from around the world, all of whom have passed an exam to join.

Penn & Teller’s famous fans include the King (who is also a Magic Circle member), while their critics include Donald Trump, who’s said to have put them on his “enemies list”.

The presentation took place on Friday, on the steps of the Palladium, in London’s West End, where Penn & Teller are currently performing their 50th Anniversary residency.

Magic Circle president Marvin Berglas said: “In the past they may have been known as the bad boys of magic with their sometimes controversial and hard-hitting choice of material.

“There was criticism from some in the past for their apparently exposing magical secrets. However, for those in the know, the real magic was always with their original and artistic performances whereby audiences thought they understood how something may have been done only to be utterly amazed with an entirely different original method.

“For this – Penn and Teller are the kings. These days The Magic Circle is the place for a truly diverse group of creative minds and talented performers.”

Penn & Teller said: “We’re honoured that the Magic Circle has invited us to be members, after we’ve violated its cardinal rule – don’t give away secrets – for five decades. This is going to be fun.”

Penn & Teller first performed together in August 1975, breaking into the mainstream in the mid-1980s, and touring with critically acclaimed shows throughout the 1990s and achieving TV success in both the US and UK.

They will be performing their 50th Anniversary Tour at The London Palladium until Wednesday, 24 September.

Entertainment

US talk show hosts react to Jimmy Kimmel cancellation – as Trump issues threat

Published

16 hours ago

September 19, 2025

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US talk show titans come out fighting after Kimmel cancellation

US talk show host Stephen Colbert has condemned the cancellation of fellow late-night star Jimmy Kimmel as a “blatant assault on freedom of speech”, as America’s top late night presenters came out fighting.

He used the opening of Thursday night’s edition of his Late Show to address the pulling of Jimmy Kimmel Live over comments made about the assassination of the right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

Kimmel used his show earlier this week to accuse the Trump administration and its allies of “working very hard to capitalise on the murder of Charlie Kirk”, with the president among those to pin it on left-wing extremism.

Explainer: What did Jimmy Kimmel say about Charlie Kirk?

The move by Disney-owned ABC has been widely criticised, with the network accused of kowtowing to President Donald Trump, who celebrated the decision.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Thursday, Mr Trump suggested certain networks should have their licenses revoked over a lack of support for him.

“When a late-night hosts is on network television there is a licence,” he said. “I read somewhere that the networks were 97% against me… they give me only bad publicity or press. I mean [if] they’re getting a licence. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away.”

Also airing on Thursday night, Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s Daily Show, appeared in a garish gold set, in parody of Mr Trump’s redesign of the White House, to tell viewers the episode would be “another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show”.

Stewart, playing the role of an over-the-top, politically obsequious TV host under authoritarian rule, lavished praise on the president and satirised his criticism of US cities and his deployment of the National Guard to fight crime.

“Coming to you tonight from the real […] crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster like no-one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?” he said.

He then introduced his guest – Maria Ressa, a journalist and author of the book How To Stand Up To A Dictator.

Over at The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon told his audience he was “not sure what was going on” but that Kimmel is “a decent funny and loving guy and I hope he comes back”.

Fallon then promised viewers that in spite of people being “worried that we won’t keep saying what we want to say or that we will be censored”, he was going to cover the president’s recent trip to the UK “just like I normally would”.

He was then replaced by a voiceover describing Mr Trump as “incredibly handsome” and “making America great again”.

Seth Meyers also joined the fray.

“Donald Trump is on his way back from a trip to the UK,” he said at the top of his show Late Night, “while back here at home, his administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech… and completely unrelated, I just wanted to say that I have always admired and respected Mr Trump.

“I have always believed he was a visionary, an innovator, a great president, and an even better golfer.”

Kimmel’s removal from the show he has hosted for two decades led to criticism that free speech was under attack.

But speaking on his visit to Britain, Donald Trump claimed he was suspended “because he had bad ratings”.

It came after fellow late-night host Colbert saw his programme cancelled earlier this year, which fans claimed was also down to his criticism of Mr Trump, who has since railed against Kimmel, Meyers, and Fallon.

He has posted on Truth Social that they should all be cancelled.

Figures from both the worlds of entertainment and politics lined up to lament ABC’s removal of Kimmel.

Chat show doyen David Letterman said people should not be fired just because they don’t “suck up” to what he called “an authoritarian” president.

During an appearance at The Atlantic Festival 2025 in New York on Thursday night, he added: “It’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous.

“I feel bad about this, because we all see where see this is going, correct? It’s managed media.”

Former US president Barack Obama wrote on X: “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent, and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating it.”