My feet are numb. I’ve been trapped in an awkward squat for several minutes, lactic acid eating through my thighs. The 20ft-tall mechanical doll stares mercilessly, her dress orange, her head full of motion sensors, laser precise. At the edge of my vision, a competitor falls with a scream. I’m wondering how it feels for a squib-rigged vest to explode on your chest. I’d seen Red Light, Green Light (a twisted version of Grandmother’s Footsteps) in the Korean TV phenomenon Squid Game. I had no idea the real-life version would be so painful.
Yesterday, hundreds of competitors in this freezing aircraft hangar held poses for nearly 30 minutes at a time. I hear that some, against all advice, dived dangerously over the finish line. Variety reported that many collapsed on set, requiring medical attention. The day after I brave these conditions, the Sun’s front page will read “Squid Game Horror in the UK!” The drama has turned real in more ways than one.
Based on Netflix’s most-watched show, Squid Game: The Challenge (conceived as the most ambitious reality competition ever made) sees a staggering 456 players from around the world compete for $4.56m. I’m having a go at some of the games with fellow journalists and no chance of winning even £20 – or so I think. We do get some natty green tracksuits, though.
The candy-coloured set is more disorienting for the presence of Anupam Tripathi, one of the original cast members. Why is he here? He catches my eye as I’m ready to fall. “Don’t just look – listen,” he hisses. What? Then I get it. I train my attention on the doll’s head. Just before it spins round again, Exorcist-style, I hear the sound of internal parts moving. The tell buys me an extra second, enough to carry me over the finish line. Perhaps Tripathi is my Guardian angel.
“The biggest surprise was that we ended up with a show where you care about the people,” reflects producer Stephen Lambert. Conventional TV wisdom dictates that viewers will not connect to a cast of 20. Having 456 players doesn’t just break the rule, but explodes it. Tens of thousands applied, attracted to the opportunity for self-discovery, not to mention 16 days living off Netflix’s expense account.
The streamer has ploughed some of the estimated $900m profit the original made into this, so I’m expecting lobster rolls. As the masked guards roll a trolley full of lunch boxes on to the dormitory floor, I utter quiet thanks. I utter something else when I uncover a hard-boiled egg, and nothing else. “I have a degree in journalism!” wails Ash, an Entertainment Tonight writer. “Now I’m asking if I can keep my sweatpants and have another egg.”
The original drama, of desperate adults playing children’s games with lethal consequences, was a satire of exploitative reality TV. What does it say that The Challenge has recreated Squid Game without the critique? “That’s one dimension of the drama. But drama is about a lot of things,” reasons producer John Hay. “Millions of us watched thinking: ‘What would I do?’ That test of human character under pressure, that’s what we seized on.”
Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has visited the set and given the show his blessing. The team have nimbly brought his vision to life, without taking on his anti-capitalist message. They’ve flipped the focus, from need to opportunity – the opportunity to win millions, to step through the screen into your favourite show. “It’s not as if our cast are destitute people, like in the show. Some of them are entrepreneurs, and quite wealthy,” says Lambert.
In a John Waters-pink bathroom cubicle, I’m shocked to see a camera pointed at me. But I still have to go. I check my hair in mirrored windows I know hide producer’s desks. Shaken by the drama of Red Light, Green Light, Ash sits down with a coffee and her vest randomly detonates, showering her in a fountain of blue ink. “Where the hell did she get a coffee?” I’m thinking. A rumour has started that we are playing for real money today. A harsh buzzer interrupts my thoughts: time for the next game.
We are marched to an old west ghost town, sunset-coloured, floor entirely sand. The guards tell us to pick a partner. Jake works for LadBible, yet I’ve been enjoying hanging out with him. He’s an obvious choice, so we buddy up. But tragedy! We are told to devise our own two-player game involving marbles, of which the loser will be eliminated. Gutting.
“Oh lad. Shall we take turns chucking marbles into a crate?” offers Jake, guilelessly. Only after we step to our improvised oche does he cockily reveal there’s a sand pit in his garden. This is his favourite game. I’ve been shafted.
I fail to bullseye. When I do, it bounces out. Jake cackles as he gathers my balls. I’m not going down like this, I decide. Also, who has a sand pit at home? Adopting a deeply uncool, between-the-legs lob, I start to gain consistency. There’s a spot of deeper sand in one corner of the crate, I notice, which deadens a marble’s fall. I hit it again and again. Jake’s losing his head. On the final round, he hits the rim of the crate, and swears. He overshoots his final marble. Eliminated. I can’t believe it.
Strategy, alliances and pragmatism are crucial to this show. (You could say the games demand a certain squid pro quo.) This is no accident, given it comes from the teams behind The Traitors and 24 Hours in A&E. Backstories are explored in player interviews that intercut the action. Watching one storyline, in which a shrewd older woman cosies up to an unpopular alpha male athlete, is as insidiously gripping as a novel. One player uses her cutesiness to hide a penchant for ruthless double-crossing. Another experiences religious doubt and breaks down.
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“We had people constantly listening on mics for a great storyline,” says producer Toni Ireland. The team were inspired by Band of Brothers and Game of Thrones – cut-throat dramas in which big characters are routinely killed off, before the baton passes to another potential hero.
As for me, I’m starting to think I might win. Guards march us into an enormous powder-blue room, with cotton-cloud walls and yellow sand, handing us each a tin and needle. The needle is to cut out a simple shape etched into a honeycomb disc inside the tin. Failure = death etc. But this sounds doable. I take in the number on my tracksuit: 456. The chosen one. I glance around at the other players. For some reason Jake has been allowed to take part, despite his humiliating defeat at marbles.
Malfunctioning vests aside, the technical side of the show is impressive: dormitory beds stacked 30ft high, an 800kg glowing piggy bank. Even the candy in my hand speaks to the immense challenge of making The Challenge. Game designers tested 19 different recipes to find one that didn’t crack too quickly or late. Each vacuum-packed, Goldilocks dalgona had to remain uncovered for precisely the same amount of time, for scrupulous fairness. “I’m getting flashbacks thinking about it,” shudders Ireland.
Suddenly I remember the scene in which Squid Game players soften their candies with spit. That’s the trick! I pop off the tin lid. As long as I get a circle, triangle, even a star, this should be OK.
I stare at the ornate umbrella shape scored in my candy: bat wing upper, thin, curved handle below. Why me? The clock starts its five-minute countdown, as I start gobbing tearfully on the brittle disc. Two minutes gone. This is so unfair. I have to start scoring with the needle. Three minutes. There’s sand in my mouth, needle slipping in my sticky hand. Four. Maybe there’s hope? I scratch frantic. Then the inevitable happens – a section of the canopy snaps off. No, no. A jump-suited guard stares, and retreats.
Pffffst. Pressurised ink explodes up my neck, coating my face. “Player 456 … eliminated.” So that’s how it feels. Blue faces litter the beach around me – including Tripathi, who also got an umbrella. Go gentle, brother. “The games become more morally complex as the series goes on, with storylines of trust and betrayal,” says Hay proudly. “It delivers on the mantra ‘How you play is who you are’.”
Fat load of good that did me. “I broke mine a bit, but covered it up with sand and they didn’t notice,” laughs Jake outside. The huge piggy bank descends from the ceiling, fluttering with banknotes like a mocking piñata. None of us passed all three games, so none of us are taking any of it home. If how you play is who you are, then colour me a bitter, blue loser.
Squid Game: The Challenge is on Netflix from 22 November