CURLED up in the corner of a crowded living room, a self-styled TV producer braced himself as a mob of wannabe reality stars threatened to punch his lights out.
The year was 2002 and enigmatic Nikita Russian had brought a group of 30 people together who he’d deemed “nuts enough to do something bizarre”, for the promise of a £100,000 prize.
He’d claimed it was for a glitzy new show that could be bigger than Big Brother, which had launched just two years earlier and kickstarted a dominant new era of reality TV.
Hundred applied and the lucky handful who passed auditions on Raven’s Alt, an island in the Thames, set aside a year of their lives to participate – giving up their homes, jobs and even sacrificing their relationships.
But to their horror, as filming quickly descended into chaos, they realised it was a sham.
Nikita was no television mastermind – rather, he was a fantasist working part-time at a Waterstones in Piccadilly.
And as the full extent of his deception became clear, six of the furious contestants turned the cameras on him, desperate to get to the bottom of who he really was.
The incredible story – reminiscent of the disastrous Fyre Festival debacle that sparked a Netflix film – is now the subject of its own TV documentary.
The Greatest Show Never Made, which lands on Amazon Prime Video next week, talks to those convinced to appear on the ill-fated reality series.
It also tracks down the elusive Nikita, who now goes by the name Nick Quentin Woolf and insists it was not a “scam”, but rather the dreams of a well-meaning would-be producer gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Hundreds had auditioned for the unnamed new show thanks to carefully placed ads and flyers handed out all over London back in the early noughties.
Many of those who made the cut claim they were led to believe it had been commissioned by Channel 4 and were convinced to take part for the chance of an “adventure”.
Jane, from Manchester, believed going on the show would change her “life forever” after moving back home following university.
“I felt like I’d lifted 10ft off the floor, all of a sudden my dream is actually happening,” she tells the documentary.
“All of a sudden my dream was happening, this was all coming true.”
Jane’s dad was concerned that his daughter was being led up the garden path, but she insisted travelling to London to begin filming.
After being chosen, each contestant was sent an email with a map and X marking the spot, and told all they needed was to bring their passport.
But upon arrival at the secret start location, the 30 budding stars were left standing in the rain, stunned into silence.
The glitzy launch was being filmed in a dismal, rain-soaked park in New Cross, south-east London, and it slowly dawned on them that nothing was going to be as expected.
Divided into three teams, they were told that they had to make £1million in a year without any starting cash.
This would be paid into a bank account controlled by the enigmatic Nikita – described by one contestant as “a very handsome man who looked as if he belonged in Hollywood”.
In old footage, several of the contestants branded the situation “ridiculous” as they realised they had no money to pay rent or buy food.
Nikita also expected them to sign a bizarre ten-page contract which took away all their rights to any money they made if they left early.
As the rain got harder, contestant Tim Eagle – who, in a sign of the disorder, was also a show cameraman – decided to invite members of the third group back to his east London flat while they decided what to do.
Meanwhile, another team discovered Nikita’s job at Waterstones and realised he had none of the credentials they’d thought.
Quickly, the first group dropped out completely, followed by the second.
The plucky six who are featured in the documentary decided to see if they could make something of the experience.
It resulted in them spending several nights sleeping on the floor in Tim’s flat, armed with his video camera.
Fellow group member John Comyn said: “It wasn’t real. It was all smoke and mirrors, no Channel 4 commission.
“The guy works in a bookshop, we’re sleeping on the floor in Dalston. We realised we were being used as guinea pigs from day one.”
While plotting a plan of action, the group were shocked when Nikita himself turned up at the flat looking disheveled. He admitted he was “as homeless as the rest of them”.
Furious, they decided to contact local media when Nikita briefly left the flat, cornering him upon his return until a TV news crew arrived.
Grilling him, one contestant called him “satanic” and another accused him of “f*cking with people’s dreams”.
John, who had said he wanted to “kill” Nikita or “stomp on his head”, admitted “a plan was hatched … probably to get revenge”.
Recalling their triumph, Tim said: “We stuck him in the corner and grilled him until this proper crew came.
“I love the multilayer madness of that – we managed to hoist him by his own petard and hang him out to dry on the medium he so wished to be a part of.”
The story made headlines across the UK and led to Nikita becoming recognised in the street – where he claimed was sleeping rough outside cinemas and in parks.
Over the next 20 years, Nikita disappeared off the radar, while the airing of the tale had lasting effects on the would-be reality stars.
“I wanted to die inside,” Jane recalled. “I just felt so stupid.”
For months, Jane stayed with the friends she had made filming the fake show, as she couldn’t face returning to her parents and admitting she had failed.
But on her return, she was told by her family that they were proud and didn’t blame her.
John, the most outwardly hostile to Nikita, says it has had life-long effects. He claimed: “It has made me more risk-averse.”
Before the show, Tim had ended things with his girlfriend as he expected to be tied up for an entire year, but when he realised that wasn’t the case, he asked her to come back.
“I asked my girlfriend to come back, and she said no,” he said. “We split up and that knocked me for six. It was deeply embarrassing; a lot of us had had send-off parties – I’d been thrown this huge surprise party. It floored me.”
Many others were left with no income and, in some cases, nowhere to live.
Fellow contestant Lucie Miller, who was in her 30s, had handed back the keys to her flat, as she believed the show would launch her career.
She had left colleagues shocked when she handed in her notice as a carpet designer, and almost all presumed she’d got a place on Big Brother. Instead, she was left with nothing.
“[Nikita] was encouraging people to give up their jobs, their relationships, their homes,” Lucie said.
“I had to overcome humiliation. I felt embarrassed to go home so soon with everything I had banking on it. Everything felt flat.”
Two decades later, the team behind the new documentary hired a detective to track Nikita down and discovered he was born Keith, and now goes by the name Nick Quentin Woolf.
When asked about the chaos he had thrown 30 unwitting people into, he said: “People seem to be cooking up that I did this for malicious motives, I was trying to make a TV show.
“People sign up to eat kangaroo anuses on telly. People going off on a mission to try to make money didn’t seem like a massive lift to me. I thought people signed up for absolutely anything.”
The fallout left Nikita struggling mentally, he claimed, especially when the tables were turned.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been held captive by a group of people, but I wouldn’t recommend it as an experience,” he said.
“It was frightening. Mentally I was falling apart.”
Nikita, who is now an author and radio host, also claimed that he had never told anyone that the show had been commissioned by Channel 4.
In one bizarre piece of old footage, he is seen walking up to the camera and making a gesture of his neck being slit.
When asked if he felt guilty about what happened, he responded: “I wanted my life to end. The most crushing thing was that I knew I had done wrong by these people.
“That was the thing that really just destroyed me, was the knowledge that I had done terrible harm to these people.”
Despite giving up everything to take part in a show that didn’t really exist, a few of the former contestants are thankful for their experience.
“Believe it or not, I would thank him because he turned my life around and changed it for the better,” Jane claims.
“If I hadn’t done it, I’m not sure if I would be the person I am now.
“No matter what life has thrown at me since, you just pick yourself up and carry on.”
Summing up the experience, Daniel said: “He did a stupid thing. We allowed him to do a stupid thing.
“We’re all culpable. We’re all involved. I wish him all the best.”
The Greatest Show Never Made is on Prime Video from October 11.
