Mel Giedroyc is bringing six of Britain’s best-known comedians into escape rooms that are anything but ordinary when The Way Out launches on U&Dave HD and Apps > U on Tuesday 12 May 2026. The four-part series is billed as a fast-paced comedy competition, with teams racing through wildly surreal challenges that mix performance, puzzle-solving and a lot of noise.
Ed Gamble leads the Horrid Little Rat People, alongside Chloe Petts and Lou Sanders, while Nish Kumar captains The Society of Best Friends with Amy Annette and David O’Doherty. The opener, Gone Fishing, sends both teams onto a boat surrounded by sea mist, gulls and marine creatures, before later episodes shift to an Art Heist inside the Louvre, a Shrink Machine and then Fire Fighters.
Giedroyc said the cast dynamic is part of the appeal. “They’re all pals – it’s just adorable. Comedy is quite a small world, so everyone knows each other, but these are proper buds and it’s just beautiful. The vibe is great, the gags are platinum!” she said, adding that the fishing room is “an actual boat, it moves on ‘almost’ real sea” with fog, seagulls and fish “being thrown out of the sea and onto the boat.”
That kind of spectacle is the point. The series is being pitched less as a stripped-back puzzle and more as a full production with lasers, lifts, ducts and set pieces that push the escape-room idea into something closer to live-action comedy theatre. Each of the four episodes is built around a different scenario, with the teams taking on the rooms as a race rather than as isolated contestants.
Giedroyc also singled out Gamble’s style under pressure. “Ed literally becomes a different person in the escape room. I’ve witnessed this on many occasions. He gets, I’m not going to say serious, but quite focused… and watch out for his nostrils!” she said. “They do a kind of flare-y thing. It’s like he’s breathing in the adrenaline and somehow it goes straight to the nostril! It’s a beautiful thing to watch. He’s a lovely guy, love him.”
Gamble, meanwhile, said the rivalry gives him an edge — and a headache. “I definitely feel more pressure knowing it’s a race against Nish’s team. I’ve done an escape room with Nish before. He did not care for it, and he wasn’t very good at it. So, if we lose to Nish, I feel like I’m gonna have to retire from escape rooms and indeed life,” he said.
The show leans on a comedy crowd that already knows one another well, with contestants described as people who have toured, gigged and lived together. That familiarity should matter when the rooms turn absurd, because The Way Out is not just asking whether the teams can solve the puzzle. It is asking whether seasoned comics can keep their heads when the joke is built into the walls.
For now, the race is set: six comedians, four episodes and one launch date. When The Way Out lands next Tuesday, the bigger question will be whether the funniest people in the room can be the quickest, too.
