Inside Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Reality Show Disaster: ‘The Conditions Were Absolutely Inhumane’ - Variety

Certainly, the incident provided a memorable front page for British tabloid The Sun, whose Jan. 25 splash read “Squid Game Horror in UK.” The story described how contestants on the reality show — produced by Studio Lambert, the same company behind the massive hit “The Traitors,” and The Garden — had been left freezing in a cavernous airplane hanger in Bedford, playing a seemingly interminable game where they had to hold statue-like poses for almost 30 minutes.

Contestants — who weren’t paid to participate in the series — say they were told the actual game would take roughly two hours to play and shoot, but instead that turned into an almost seven-hour ordeal for some contenders.

On day one of production, contestants received hotel wake-up calls as early as 3:30 a.m. With firm instructions not to interact with other players, they were driven in buses to Bedford’s Cardington Studios, a former Royal Air Force hanger two hours’ drive north of London, where they were grouped off in tents and miked up.

The “Squid Game” track suit they wore is exactly the one seen in the drama — teal and cream in color, chunky and comfortable, but hardly your go-to outfit to brave the elements.

Coats were taken away; hand and foot warmers were scooped out of pockets and plimsolls; and the players’ jackets had to remain unzipped in order to display their numbers as well as the fake blood that would squirt from devices strapped to their chests if they were eliminated.

When “Squid Game: The Challenge” was announced by Netflix’s then-global TV boss Bela Bajaria (now chief content officer) at the Banff World Media Festival in June 2022, Studio Lambert and The Garden — two top British production companies — were the envy of the U.K. industry.