The Crystal Maze
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50 free The Crystal Maze trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Crystal Maze turned a team challenge into an adventure. A group of contestants followed an eccentric Maze Master through themed time zones, won crystals from puzzle cells, then cashed them in for a frantic grab at flying gold tokens in the Crystal Dome. It ran on British television through the first half of the 1990s, came back in 2016, and still has a devoted following. This quiz covers the Crystal Maze zones in detail, from Aztec, Futuristic, Medieval and Industrial to the two that replaced them later: how each one looked, how teams got in and how each kept time. It also covers the rules of the games and the Dome, the hosts and the characters who lived in the maze, the sets and studios, and the spin-offs. It suits anyone who grew up shouting advice at the television, and newer viewers who met the programme through its revival or the live attractions.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor, Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, was the first host of The Crystal Maze?
Richard O'Brien
Richard O'Brien presented the first four series, and his asides straight to camera began as jokes with the cameramen that the producers then asked him to keep doing.
Q 02What happened to a Crystal Maze contestant still inside a game cell when the time limit ran out?
They were locked in
They were locked in, crystal or no crystal, and stayed there unless the captain gave up one of the team's hard-won crystals to buy their freedom.
Q 03Inside the Crystal Dome on The Crystal Maze, tokens of which colour cancelled out a team's gold ones?
Silver
Silver tokens each wiped one gold from the count, which is why a team grabbing blindly in the swirl could end the final challenge with a total below zero.
Q 04The Crystal Maze was devised after plans for a British version of which French series fell through?
Fort Boyard
Fort Boyard's sea fortress was being refurbished in 1989, so creator Jacques Antoine sketched a new format built around a glass dome, and the concept was worked up in two days.
Q 05Which star of The IT Crowd became host of The Crystal Maze when it was revived in 2017?
Richard Ayoade
Richard Ayoade got the job after the 2016 special's presenter turned down the full series, and his deadpan style drew comparisons with Moss, the awkward technician he played in the sitcom.
Q 06Which zone replaced Industrial on The Crystal Maze after the show's first three series?
Ocean
Ocean arrived in 1993 as the SS Atlantis, a sunken ship sitting in an air bubble on the seabed, complete with a grand piano, a saloon staircase and a boiler room.
Q 07Which luxury glassmaker made the golf ball-sized time crystals won by teams on The Crystal Maze?
Swarovski
Swarovski, the Austrian jewellery house, supplied the glass crystals, and every contestant went home with a commemorative one even if the team lost.
Q 08Who made up the teams in the Christmas specials of The Crystal Maze shown during the 1990s?
Children
Children aged 10 to 15 played easier games with gentler time limits and extra clues, and unlike the adult teams they were always given the prize at the end.
Q 09The Crystal Maze was regularly the highest-rated programme on which British television network?
Channel 4
Channel 4 had first wanted a British remake of a French series, and when that proved impossible it commissioned this home-grown alternative instead.
Q 10The first host of The Crystal Maze would pull which instrument from his pocket during the games?
A harmonica
A harmonica supplied one short, repetitive tune that he played while contestants struggled, and now and then he would find other instruments around the set and burst into song.
Q 11On The Crystal Maze, how much time inside the Crystal Dome did each crystal won buy a team?
Five seconds
Five seconds per crystal meant a typical haul of four to eight bought well under a minute, counted down by lights beneath the crystals going dark one at a time.
Q 12How many gold tokens, after deductions, did a team on The Crystal Maze need to win the grand prize?
100
100 was the target, and in the first series a score of 50 to 99 still earned a runner-up prize, a consolation scrapped before the second series began.
Q 13Alongside Mental, Physical and Skill, what was the fourth type of game on The Crystal Maze?
Mystery
Mystery games ranged from hunts for hidden objects to large-scale mazes, and in the original series the team itself picked which category to attempt next.
Q 21Which punk singer of the hit Swords of a Thousand Men took over as host of The Crystal Maze?
Ed Tudor-Pole
Ed Tudor-Pole presented the last two original series, playing up the time-travel story with invented words and tall tales about each zone's history.
Q 22Which zone, timed by a pendulum clock, replaced Medieval on The Crystal Maze from 2019?
Eastern
Eastern drew on the architecture of East Asia, with lanterns, ornate vases and cherry blossom, and teams peeked into its cells by drawing back curtains.
Q 23Games in the castle-themed Medieval zone of The Crystal Maze were timed using which devices?
Hourglasses
Hourglasses suited the castle, because every zone told the time in a way that matched its era, from an analogue clock in the factory setting to a digital display in the future.
Q 14The Futuristic zone of The Crystal Maze, entered through an airlock, was designed as what?
A space station
A space station orbiting an unknown planet was the setting, deliberately run-down in the 1990s with exposed wiring, then rebuilt clean and sleek for the revival.
Q 15Teams starting in the Medieval zone of the original Crystal Maze first had to raise what?
A portcullis
A portcullis barred the castle entrance, and the team had to find the right chain to lift it; in later series they simply climbed over it.
Q 16Mumsie, played by Sandra Caron in the Medieval zone of The Crystal Maze, was what kind of character?
A fortune teller
A fortune teller who set brainteasers, she began as an unnamed game character until the host's banter cast her as his mother, and the name stuck in later series.
Q 17Which co-creator of The Office hosted a one-off celebrity edition of The Crystal Maze in 2016?
Stephen Merchant
Stephen Merchant guided the first ever celebrity team around a replica maze built for paying visitors, and the response persuaded the broadcaster to order a full revival.
Q 18The celebrity special of The Crystal Maze shown in October 2016 raised money for which campaign?
Stand Up to Cancer
Stand Up to Cancer also benefited from the celebrity episodes of the later revival, where the size of the donation rose with the number of gold tokens a team collected.
Q 19The first host of The Crystal Maze later voiced the father, Lawrence Fletcher, in which Disney cartoon?
Phineas and Ferb
Phineas and Ferb kept him busy for years: he voiced the part in both of the films as well, and came back to it when the series was revived.
Q 20On The Crystal Maze, what sent the gold tokens swirling around the team inside the Crystal Dome?
Fans under the floor
Fans under the floor blew the tokens up through a mesh the team stood on, though much of the real collecting was done on hands and knees as they settled round the sides.
Q 24After one series at a film studio, the vast Crystal Maze set was rebuilt inside what kind of building?
An aircraft hangar
An aircraft hangar on an Essex airfield gave the producers room to expand the maze, which stayed there until the original run ended in 1995.
Q 25Guinness World Records recognised the original Crystal Maze, built at North Weald, as the largest what?
Game show set
Game show set was the record category: the maze cost about £250,000 to build and covered an area roughly the size of two football pitches.
Q 26Makers of The Crystal Maze likened it to which role-playing game, with the host running the adventure?
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons was the model, with the host as Dungeon Master leading a party through themed rooms; years later the first host acted in the game's film adaptation.
Q 27What was the relationship between the six teammates on the original Crystal Maze before filming began?
They were strangers
They were strangers, put together by the production team from applicants aged 16 to 40; the 2017 revival switched to groups of friends, relatives or colleagues.
Q 28In the original Crystal Maze, what encircled the Crystal Dome until the revival did away with it?
A moat
A moat ringed the Dome, and the host worked two switches on a podium to lower its bridge and open the door; the revival dropped it in favour of flashing lights.
Q 29On The Crystal Maze, what did the host blow to start the team grabbing tokens in the Crystal Dome?
A whistle
A whistle went a moment after the tokens took flight; when one revival team reached the Dome with no crystals at all, the host blew two at once and they scored nothing.
Q 30Chatsworth, maker of The Crystal Maze, earlier produced which helicopter series featuring Anneka Rice?
Treasure Hunt
Treasure Hunt shared a creator with the maze, Frenchman Jacques Antoine, and its composer Zack Laurence went on to write the maze's theme tune too.