Knightmare's fifth series was first shown between 06/09/1991 and 20/12/1991. Like every Knightmare series, Series 5 had its share of beginnings and ends, while continuing the development of Knightmare that had been started so distinctively in Series 4.

Look-in magazine assisted, as it had before, in publicising the forthcoming fifth series. In its 19/01/1991 issue, an article invited contestant applications before the end of February, noting that the new episodes would be filmed in Norwich in July and August.


The 14/09/1991 issue of Look-in carried a full-page publicity photo (available to view in the Lexicon entry on the antechamber) accompanied by an article profiling nearly all of the Series 5 characters. A scan of this can be found further down this page. The descriptions of Brother Mace and the Gatemaster have been printed next to the wrong photos.

With the obvious exceptions of Treguard and Pickle, very few Series 4 characters made multiple appearances in Series 5:
Paul Valentine continued to play Motley, taking on Sylvester Hands from S5 onwards;
Michael Cule continued to play Brother Mace, taking on the Gatemaster for S5 only;
Clifford Norgate continued to play Hordriss and Oakley, though the latter had just a single S5 appearance;
S4's Boatman was seen twice in S5;
Milly, Molly and Ariadne were each seen once.

New cast members included:
Juliet Henry-Massy (Gwendoline, Aesandre);
Stephanie Hesp (Elita, Pixel);
Rayner Bourton(Skarkill, Julius Scaramonger).
All but the first of those three actors went on to appear in Series 6 too.

There is more to be said on the subject of new cast members. In knightmare.com's History Of Knightmare, Tim Child discusses his desire to maintain and better what Knightmare was providing:

'I became determined to sustain, and even improve those interactive elements that we could deliver. If it was not so important which destination you chose, then what must be critical, is how you conduct yourself when you get there. This also translated into: 'its not where you go its who you meet.'

In adventure gaming, every new solution tends to expose a new problem. If we needed higher levels of interactive drama, then we needed stronger interactors, with powerful personalities and sub-plots to justify their activities.

That spring I auditioned in London for the new Knightmare dungeon cast. The Merlin/Mogdred scenario was exhausted (in any case I had always found it annoyingly derivative) and I was convinced that the drama game engine of Knightmare must be driven by a really solid baddy.

When Mark Knight walked into the audition room, he certainly didn't look the part. He was slightly plump, far from muscular, and of medium height. Within 10 minutes however, I became convinced that Mark was our missing weapon.'

Mr. Knight became the enduring Lord Fear. In doing so, he helped to define the Opposition as a force and faction within the Dungeon, making Treguard, the questing teams and their helpers part of another force, the Powers That Be (originally a biblical term). Characters with no loyalties, or shifting loyalties, would be classed as Neutral. Complementing the strengthened dramatic element were spyglasses, which enabled what Tim Child calls 'drama-based clues'.
The importance of location persisted in Series 5. It had '150 different locations set in 12 castles, three forests and two medieval towns' (Source: The One magazine, August 1991 [expired]) The settlement of Wolfenden became a familiar port of call for dungeoneers, as did its surrounding woodland (Wolfglade and the Greenwood). Tantalisingly, various areas, such as Mount Fear and the Mines of Malapith, were mentioned but never actually visited by any team. However, the expansiveness of the Knightmare realm was strikingly highlighted by the addition of Smirkenorff, a dragon that bore dungeoneers over great distances between or within levels. Although Smirkenorff's flights constituted passive paths, they were arguably more impressive than the eyeshield sequences that continued throughout Series 5.
After four series, wellways were no more, replaced by descenders and dragon rides. Whereas in some earlier series every dungeoneer would have to answer questions from a wall monster in order to proceed and to gain clues as to what items to pick up, in Series 5 these hints were supplied by scrolls, and a dungeoneer had to give a password/dayword to a Blocker in order to proceed. Life Force was still a feature of quests, but the way it appeared on screen made it seem superfluous. A new means of acquiring spells was introduced: the spell scroll. Whilst the Corridor of Blades was still part of the Dungeon and continued to be the demise of dungeoneers (two in S5), a new challenge was added in the form of Causeways, on which even more dungeoneers met their doom (three during S5).

In 2014, clips from Series 5 were uploaded to the CITV Old Skool channel on YouTube.
Of the 6000-or-so teams that applied to be on Series 5 (The One magazine, August 1991), nine embarked upon quests: the fourth won, redeeming the Shield.The following Lexicon entries offer specific information on aspects of Series 5 (and further entries mentioning S5 can be found by browsing):

Actors: Mark Knight, Stephanie Hesp, Rayner Bourton

Teams: Team 1 of Series 5, Team 2 of Series 5, Team 3 of Series 5, Team 4 of Series 5, Team 5 of Series 5, Team 6 of Series 5, Team 7 of Series 5, Team 8 of Series 5, Team 9 of Series 5

Characters & Creatures: Treguard, Pickle, Lord Fear, Pixel the pixie, Blocker, Neddy, Tiny the hobgoblin, Boatman, Ariadne, Milly, Molly, flower girl, Harris, Hordriss ("Malefact"), Brother Mace, Julius Scaramonger, Skarkill, Elita, Motley, frightknight, Smirkenorff the dragon, Aesandre, wolf, Assassin, Oakley, skull ghost, Sir Hugh, Gwendoline, Gatemaster


Spells: DISMISS, BAG, FIRE, FREEZE, PIXEL, HERO, GHOST, SESAME, SWITCH, CHANGE, cast locked

Objects: spyglass/magnifying glass, knapsack, spell scroll, aniseed, banana, pineapple, potion, Impurity, poison, bauble, rope, pillory, map, Staff of Saint Smasher the Aggressive, cheese, silver, divining rod, horn, key

Locations: Winteria, Crazed Heifer, Gateway Inn, Greenshades, Mines of Malapith, Dirty Duck, web, Shapes and Numerals puzzle, descender/descendor/Travelling Gate/Gate Tower, Causeway, Wolfenden, Snake Pit, Mount Fear, (Framlingham Castle), (Castle Rising), (Orford Castle), (Castle Acre Priory), (Oxburgh Hall), (Llansteffan Castle), (Castell Coch), (Carreg Cennen Castle), (Weald and Downland Open Air Museum), (Hedingham Castle), (Bodiam Castle), (Kidwelly Castle), (Pennard Castle), (Caerphilly Castle), (Bungay Castle), (Coggeshall Grange Barn), (Paviland Cliff), (Llyn Brianne)
Miscellaneous: Passive paths, Paper Rock Scissors, dayword, Samurai, dragonsbreath, Bog off, Tommy Boyd, Robin Hood, I, Julius, flight, password, cutpurse, cowslip, pooh

NEXT: Series 6
PREVIOUS: Series 4

[Originally posted: 2006-12-28

Look-in magazine cuttings courtesy of Jamie Hall]

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