The Cube

ITV1's new Saturday night gameshow is an excellent and effortlessly entertaining hour that goes to prove how the best ideas are often the simplest. Essentially, contestants must perform seven deceptively simple challenges inside a giant transparent Cube, each success rewarded by an increasing cash prize. The tasks may appear trivial and silly on the surface, but with a live studio audience gawping at every angle, and host Philip Schofield reminding you of the monetary stakes every ten seconds, these trifling games become tense nailbiters...

The Cube owes a debt to ITV's own Beat The Star (which features similar "pub games" in a few rounds), but spliced with a live-action video-game*. Challenges include: throwing a ball into a container while standing on a rotating platform, dropping a ball into a tube at arm's length, crossing the cube floor between two red lines while blindfolded, picking up balls from the cube floor and putting them into a tube in 15 seconds, rolling a ball down a long diagonal tube and catching it at the other end with the same hand, flick a ball into a container, and many others. Yes, The Cube could quite easily be called "The Balls given how often those particular prop comes into play!

Players have nine lives in which to complete as many games as they can, and one opportunity to "bank" the cash they've accumulated. If they use up all their lives, they walk away with the amount they banked, or nothing. They also have two life-lines to help them through the seven rounds: "Trial Run" (where they can play a game without risking anything) and "Simplify" (where a game's rules are altered to make it easier.) The genius of the format is how much tension it squeezed from each game -- helped by camera tricks like slowing down the action to see exact moments of failure, balanced with the euphoric release of a "bullet-time" spin around the Cube as the player celebrates a win.

It's fast-paced, easy to understand, the rules are simple**, the games are fun, the cash on offer has a steep trajectory to a hefty £250,000 jackpot, and host Philip Schofield is someone who naturally engages with the players. And like all good gameshows, it has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek –- what with "The Body", a sort of female Stig who demonstrates each game beforehand. And no, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Elle Macpherson behind the mask...

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this pub-version of The Crystal Maze was, and I'm looking forward to more. I can already imagine lots of kids creating their own Cube-like games at home, involving daddy's office chair, ping pong balls, and the contents of mummy's purse. My only cause for concern is that the rotation of the games could become an issue, as they might start repeating themselves too soon. That was one reason the assault course-based Total Wipeout turned instantly dull in only its second week, so hopefully the makers of The Cube have an abundance of devilish tasks to maintain viewer interest and limit repetition.


22 August 2009
ITV1, 8.30pm

* In fact, I predict a Wii tie-in game to The Cube will be on shelves within a year.

** Complicated rules always turn me off with gameshows (see: Goldenballs – does anyone understand how you play that?)