The Greatest Show Never Made

If only I had the money.

Money is the biggest obstacle on the way to personal freedom.

If you can sort that one out, you are laughing.

Now, I've found 30 people nuts enough to do something seriously bizarre.

We're gonna take money on at its own game.

And we're gonna win.

Thirty grown men and women gave up their jobs and homes for a year

to be in a reality TV show that doesn't exist.

Why you do that?

People sacrificed jobs, careers.

People's dreams, that's like sacred that you're fucking with.

I remember John, he was saying,

"I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna kill that Nik.

I'm gonna kill him."

What was in it for him?

Was it access to your bank accounts? Was he just on a power trip?

We never learned the why behind all of this.

I'd love to know what his real name is.

How long has it been since you've seen Nik?

Twenty years.

At least, yeah.

I never meant to do anybody any harm .

And he vanished.

He... disappeared, and we never saw him again.

Where is he?

My God.

Oh, my God.

This is so weird.

It is just like my head is going a bit, you know...

This is like taking a massive step back in time.

Oh, my God.

Blockbuster used to be a thing.

How do you get these things? Who keeps them?

This is what I wanna do. I wanna... learn how to be a cameraman.

Have you any idea how this feels? It's just like...

It feels like I'm back there.

Ah-ha-ha!

One of the best things I ever did... was carry on filming.

Woo! Yeah!

I think things are really gonna turn out all right.

See you soon.

Um...

I guess it... I think it... I think it is a salient tale, you know.

That, um...

provokes a lot of feelings in anybody.

That we, um...

we want something, we want... we want to escape.

And, um...

Or we want to... escape from our present reality

and journey towards a better... a better future for ourselves.

In 2002, I was living with my mum and dad at home outside of Manchester.

You know, when you're living back at home, you've got your day-to-day life routine.

-I was 21. -

Doing a typical 9-5 kind of job.

Going to work, coming home.

Going out with friends, go for a drink.

My dad was, like, "Where are you going?"

"What time are you gonna be back?"

"Where are you?" "I'll come and pick you up."

Driving up against the kerb

and you having to, like, pretend that you don't know him,

because you're embarrassed, because your dad's come to pick you up.

I was daddy's little girl.

He loved me so much.

He kind of wanted me to be happy all the time.

He never wanted me to feel like I'd failed at anything, or be disappointed.

That was me.

Every day, it's like, going round and round and round.

Same thing, over and over and over again.

Looking back now, I understand that...

I was probably a bit bored. A bit frustrated.

I wrote five plays.

I didn't become a successful playwright.

Then I found...

Clown.

And I found Clown said everything I wanted to say.

Clown said, "We're all idiots.

I'm an idiot, you're an idiot, we're all idiots.

Let's try and enjoy ourselves nonetheless."

Skinny Bean is my clown. He's, um...

We've just celebrated 30 years.

Can you tell me about Skinny Bean? What's he like?

Oh, he's very rude.

Is Skinny Bean similar to Tim?

Oh, yeah.

Skinny Bean is Tim.

Unleashed.

- -

I like to provoke a little bit, and, um...

I was always wanting to... just be free to do my own thing, really.

Well, 2002.

I was 37.

I'd been clowning for about 10 years...

- -

...and wanted something more.

I could see that it doesn't lead anywhere.

And that's one of the things about clowning or entertaining.

There's no management structure.

2002, I temped in Canary Wharf.

Doing the same job every day.

You start the monotony and when you start monotony,

life's not exciting.

Complete boredom.

It's after a while when you can sort of do your job...

with your eyes shut.

I was on the lookout.

For something.

There was something that was missing.

At the time, I wasn't that young. I was in my 30s.

I was a carpet designer.

Also making presentations on carpets to architects.

I had to talk for an hour about carpets.

Specification. Texture. Patterns.

Materials. Orders. Composition.

I would watch the faces, kind of, and the people go... eurgh.

Colour. Design. Durability.

Ornamentation. Maintenance.

I always used to think, right, how can I make this fun?

I would think about my style of presenting.

I would think about what I was saying, how I was putting things.

Um, and I just became sort of interested in the art of presenting.

So we're turning over.

And into the lens, please. Lovely, thank you.

Hi there. My name's Lucie Maycock and I want to be a TV presenter

because it makes me feel wildly excited

and anything that makes me feel like that must be a good thing.

Okay.

Not very natural, is it?

Uh, no, it's all right.

I shouldn't be making it obvious that I haven't done it before.

I did really want to be a presenter.

I was attracted to one of these little courses that you can do.

Detectives are beginning to rely more and more on clairvoyance

to help solve these murders.

I wanted to take what I was doing, give it a boost, and make it more fun.

-Hi, can I ask you a quick question? -Yeah.

What do you think about men in makeup?

Can't stand it.

Around the millennium, I think a lot of people had hopes

for things to be better, be bigger.

["Right Here, Right Now" by Fatboy Slim plays]

Eight hours left of the 20th century.

I wanna get drunk. I wanna have lots of fun.

Waa...

- -

I'm feelin' not too bad, you know.

I'm hoping for a nice next thousand years, you know.

I hope it's better than the last one.

I was innocent. I knew nothing, I...

I was naive, in fact.

I'd just moved to the UK so everything was new to me.

It was a brand new life.

In one of the most exciting cities in the world.

And it feels good to be in London for it as well.

I'm ready, I'm ready. I'm more than ready.

I was a 23-year-old stranger living in London

having no clue how things worked.

Totally different person.

A lot less responsible, a lot more spontaneous.

It was different back then. The UK was different.

You're led to believe that you can do anything.

Everything was possible.

You felt a sense of invincibility.

I think we're getting better and better.

Three lions are coming back.

A lot happened in a very short space of time.

A lot of change happened.

Television was changing.

Reality TV starting.

This whole psychological thing of watching people behave like idiots on TV.

Nineteen minutes to 7.

A very good morning to you if you're just joining us.

Now then, how would you feel if your every move at home

was watched by millions of people?

Well, the contestants in Channel 4's new television and web series

called Big Brother,

have volunteered to be under the microscope