It’s the summer of 2002: Big Brother is captivating tens of millions of viewers, rocketing ordinary people onto the front pages of tabloids and convincing us that celebrity is within our grasp. So, when Nikita Russian Productions announces a new reality TV series, thousands apply. They travel far and wide for a shot at fame and the £100,000 prize. Uniformed staff oversee auditions on a mysterious private island on the Thames. Thirty ecstatic people are chosen to take part, and the lucky contestants are given their contracts: accommodation, food and leisure money will be provided. All they must do is be filmed for a year while they complete a secret task. They quit their jobs, end relationships and give up their homes for this chance of a lifetime. But within hours of arriving in the city, they realise that the show doesn’t exist.

A tale so wild it’s hard to believe it’s really true, Prime Video’s new three-part documentary The Greatest Show Never Made is a cautionary tale about fame and the seductive powers of reality television. 

Merging fresh interviews with contestants with original 2002 footage, the show transports viewers back to the early 2000s reality TV boom, when a sixth of the UK’s population was watching Big Brother and a spate of copycat series would emerge in its wake. As relationships are formed and then broken, at the centre of it all is Nik Russian, the mysterious ‘producer’ that promised contestants the world, only to end up homeless and stranded alongside them.

More than 20 years on, those who lived through the experience still have unanswered questions about the man who duped them: who is he? What was he thinking? And where is he now? 

Lucie Miller, now 55, was 34 years old when she left her boyfriend and parents behind to take part in the show. “I thought it was going to be my big break,” she tells Stylist. “I had so many plans and hopes, it just felt like my head was going to explode with excitement.” Not only had Miller successfully auditioned to be a contestant, Russian had asked her to take on a hosting role on the series.

Of course, the experience ended in disappointment. “I felt totally cheated and betrayed. I didn’t talk about it for a really long time because it was so painful,” she shares. “My husband and I would refer to it as ‘The Thing’ and I didn’t even tell people in my life that I’ve known for years.”

Despite some unexpected emotions, Miller says that the process of filming The Greatest Show Never Made has been a cathartic one. “I didn’t know how raw those feelings would be because even though it happened 20 years ago, it was still very confusing to me and I’d never really known the full picture,” she says. “But listening to the other contestants talk and even hearing Nik tell his side of the story was really revealing.”

Now happily settled with a family, Miller admits the experience was “mortifying”, but she doesn’t have regrets. “After things ended, I had to come home with my tail between my legs, which was hard, but I’ve never wanted to be pitied because of what happened.”

The Greatest Show Never Made is on Prime Video from 11 October.

Images: Prime Video