Nero And The Gladiators has been played on NTS in shows including Diddy Wah, featured first on 16 April 2018. Songs played include Boots.

Nero (Mike O'Neill) had previously played keyboards as a member of the 'Cabin Boys', the backing group of Tommy Steele's less famous brother- Colin Hicks. He and bassist 'Boots' Slade had formed the Gladiators originally with Laurie Jay on drums and Colin Green on lead guitar. Green was then the lead with Billy Fury's backing musicians the 'Beat Boys' who would later become 'Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames'. It was this Gladiator's line up that recorded the classic guitar led instrumental, 'Entry Of The Gladiators'. The follow up- 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King', with its wonderful vocal intro- "Ah, say there Brutus, like, where is this king's pad?", featured the guitar work of Joe Moretti and drums of Tommy Brown. Despite the minor success of the first singles, the original line-up didn't last long and Green moved off to take care of what he presumably saw as a more secure future with the 'Blue Flames' shortly after recording their third offering 'Czardas'. A lot of personnel changes followed and the group managed to record only one further single, 'Tovaritch' which no longer credited 'Nero' in the roll call