That 2002 was 21 years ago is obviously wrong in all but the most factual terms. The endlessly elegant and compelling documentary The Greatest Show Never Made takes us back to that incredibly distant time of yesteryear when reality TV was the newest and most exciting thing and a man posing as a television producer (or was he?) could attract hundreds of people.
Potential contestants would audition for the last contestant in the field, which would require them to give up their lives for a year. The chosen few duly handed in their notices at work, broke their leases, informed family and friends they were leaving, and set off – with the passports they had been told to bring – on their new adventure. The only problem was that the show (which would require them to try to make a million pounds together over the course of the year) didn't exist outside of producer Nikita Russian's head.
Creators: Liam Coutts, Emily Dalton, Tom Dalton
Stars: Jane Marshall, Lucie Miller, John Comyn
Yes, his name was Nikita Russian. You'd think that should have tipped them off. But 2002 was a more innocent time. No, really, it was. Memory. We were all sweet idiots. It was better.
Anyway. The Greatest Show Never Made is a millefeuille, between the layers of which are cartoonish recreations of crucial moments or plot twists, filmed in a childish ITV and Wes Anderson style that keeps the viewer very out of place; the ideal environment to face this strange story.
One layer comprises archive footage from actual shows of the era: the inaugural Big Brother, X Factor, etc. Another consists of memories of some of the current contestants: their hopes of escaping boring jobs, a foot in the door of a career in entertainment, the lure of a kind of fame that until then had only been granted to a golden few.
Another layer shows footage filmed back then, mostly by one of the contestants themselves, including footage of the handsome and charismatic Nik. We sometimes see the contestants watching the footage from then, shaking their heads at their naivety and their willingness to keep faith in the project until the pile of evidence threatened to collapse and bury them. Another layer is the testimony of Nik's childhood friend Michael, who helped him get the project off the ground but left when it became clear that his plans barely rose above the level of fantasy, and who remembers Nik, or Keith, as they really called him. – as a happy, creative child until something derailed him in his teenage years.
Most fascinatingly, we hear from Nik himself, now known as N Quentin Wolf (the only thing we can know for sure about him is that he has a terrible way of choosing names), who insists that it was never a scam, that he wanted to take advantage the energy being spent on programs that ultimately did nothing and instead enabling people to build skills, a business and a fortune together.
On paper it sounds silly, and maybe it is. But Wolf, still handsome, ineffably charismatic, even in this older, quieter form, has an earnestness and a sad air that makes it ring true. But that, of course, was always his gift. He takes some responsibility and admits some remorse for everything that happened, but seems unable to see it through to the end. Which may have always been his problem.
The Greatest Show Never Made is a three-part series that begins light-heartedly, promising an intricate but simple story of victims and villains to shock, and much of the first episode delivers. But before the end of that opening hour, the show has already begun to delve into a thoughtful and unexpectedly moving account of the human desire for connection, fulfillment, meaning, and the vulnerability that entails.
Question the idea of “following your dreams” and fill that long-empty phrase with meaning. The victims (as they undoubtedly were) took revenge on Nik at the time and can now reflect on his strange experience and his younger self largely in peace. And Nik's status as a conscientious villain has turned out to be very complicated in the end. The entire documentary is riddled with several strange things; gentleness, consideration and maybe even forgiveness. It is, on the whole, quite wonderful.
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