Fantasy Fort Boyard UK

This sort of came up on the Discord this week, and as somebody who has been watching the French show for the best part of thirty years I would of course be lying if I suggested I had never considered “what about…?” and in fact recently had some ideas playing in my head. So here’s basically an extended version of things I wrote, for better or worse:

• My personal feeling is that doing it closer to the French presentational style opens up the possibility space – I’ve never much liked the idea that it’s just a jumped up outward bound centre even if that’s just what it exactly is really, but there are ways to make it ‘Brit-relatable’. Not really a slam on how we’ve done it before, I think Leslie Grantham becoming increasingly panto was fun. I would work on the assumption that with time constraints Judgement and the Council get ditched, although I’d be open to using elements of them in future series when the French have had a bit of a lean year in terms of new games. Realistically you’re looking at a 90m max show, which is about 65-70m with adverts but I think you could do a decent show with less.
• If Yann Le Gac’s English is good enough, would be perfectly happy for him to reprise his Pere Fouras role. But if we wanted to go down a different route, I’d be well up for a retired Pirate Queen, pitched somewhere between one of the captains from Swashbuckle and Cruella DeVille.
• Host could be anyone provided they’re a) funny and b) a bit world-weary. “Hello and welcome to my little holiday home off the coast of France, which I get to live rent free provided that once a week I chaperone a team of treasure hunters who insist on invading, which I have to say is sometimes REALLY badly timed and annoying.”
• All other Bits of Business – Willy Rovelli, Cyril Gossbo – to be done by Dave Benson-Phillips. This is non-negotiable.
• Format: drop the clock, it’s just a narrative device anyway. Three ’rounds’ of challenges. First two rounds are three “epreuves” and an adventure, third round two cells, two adventures, because adventures. Having the ’rounds’ in advance means P-M can still do the occasional bit of business in delivering them to the host, but it’s not after every game. If the team are doing well PF can find someway to blame/shout at PM.
• Winning earns a key, winning an adventure earns TWO keys. Buying out a prisoner costs one key. One of the adventures must be a riddle – there is no “standard” riddle these days, they all have a hint of danger attached.
• Right, the fun bit – there are 16 keys up for grabs. The first five are used to open the Treasure Room. The team must decide how they want to spend their other ones, either on time (base of 2m, each key spent adding 20secs), or at the Clue Cabinet. They can sacrifice people for keys to unlock more clues, but once they’ve set the clock that’s it.

Also I’ve been desperate to redesign the clue boxes for years and years. Combination locks are so *rubbish* for TV. So here’s a very simple pencil drawing of an idea I’ve been playing with:

Features!

• Six buttons arranged on the front. Push the right one – box opens! Push the wrong one – clue explodes!
• Designed to be eliminatory (“don’t press ‘blue tiger’!” for Tete Cherceuse, for example), or requiring two halves to make a whole (“red” “snake”), or just plain old ‘press that one’!
• Light on top starts flashing at twenty seconds remaining, giving team chance of quick discussion re: let them finish vs just take a guess.
• They might luck out! This is a feature not a bug.

Phew! Well I’m glad I’ve finally got that out of paper even if I’ll look back on it in a few years and wonder what the hell I was thinking that for.