page_title: Great Reality TV Swindle
section_title: Nik Russian
hierarchical_section_title: Great Reality TV Swindle / Background / Nik Russian
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped image of File:Northallerton Waterstones &amp; Fat Face.JPG, originally taken by User:Chrisloader
context_page_description: The Great Reality TV Swindle was a con perpetrated in 2002 by Nik Russian, a British man who, at the time, was working at an entry-level position in a branch of the UK book chain Waterstone's. Russian placed advertisements in major publications that invited people to audition for a year-long reality television programme where they could potentially win a prize of GB£100,000. After receiving hundreds of responses, he auditioned some of them on Raven's Ait in London, then selected 30 successful auditionees to take part, without informing them that no actual program had been commissioned. Telling them that the show would last for an entire year, Russian instructed the participants to leave their homes, quit their jobs and then meet him in London on 10 June, where they would be divided into teams of ten and set their challenge for the next twelve months.
  The challenge was to make £1 million in a single year. Realizing that they would essentially be making their own prize money, most contestants quit the show within two days. One group stayed together for slightly longer: sleeping on the floor of their cameraman's flat, they attempted to create their own TV show about themselves.
context_section_description: Nikita "Nik" Russian was born Keith Anthony Gillard in Surrey in 1977. Raised in Farnham, he legally changed his name to Jack Lister in his early twenties, then changed it again to Nikita Russian. He studied English at Goldsmiths, University of London, but dropped out before the exams. He had set up businesses and written unpublished novels before taking a job working at a branch of Waterstone's in London—he subsequently decided that he wanted to produce his own reality television program.
caption: At the time of the swindle, Russian was working at a branch of the UK book chain Waterstone's (example pictured).
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