Balls of Steel is a British television comedy game show hosted by Mark Dolan. Dolan's special guests perform stunts and hold their nerve during hidden camera set-ups in the presence of celebrities or the British public.

Massive Balls of Steel, the spin-off series to Balls of Steel, was broadcast on E4, showing highlights of the show.

There were a total of 12 acts. In each episode, six acts competed with one of them being the winner from the previous episode. At the end of each episode the studio audience had to decide which act had the biggest 'Balls of Steel' by voting on a keypad. The Balls of Steel format is distributed internationally by DRG.

There were various acts seen frequently on the show, presented by the regular performers.

Even before it was broadcast, Balls of Steel received an enormous amount of publicity during the London premiere of the film War of the Worlds; its leading actor Tom Cruise was squirted with a water pistol disguised as a microphone as a part of Olivia Lee's Prank TV segment. Cruise expressed his disdain, calling the prankster a "jerk" and later saying in a press conference: "There are bullies, people who like to make people feel less and feel bad. Those people need to be confronted. In my life I have never felt something like that is funny."^[2] However, it was not Olivia Lee who squirted Tom Cruise with water – the prank was performed by producer Michael Livingstone.^[3] Livingstone and three others from the crew were arrested after pranking Cruise but were later released on bail.^[4] However, Cruise did not press charges, with his publicist saying, "These guys aren’t worth the time or energy".^[5]

Cruise's reaction was not as extreme as that of Sharon Osbourne in an identical stunt several weeks before; she reacted by throwing a bucket of water over their camera. Osbourne was said to have offered Cruise's lawyers the paperwork covering her parallel incident.^[6] Osbourne also called for all celebrities to boycott Channel 4; however, her boycott did not last, as she herself has appeared on the channel many times since – including being guest host of The Friday Night Project in 2007.

Others who were squirted with a water pistol included Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden.^[7] Sveriges Television, where the Swedish version Ballar av stål was going to air, decided to cancel the show after massive criticism.^[8] But the show was picked up in 2008 by the Swedish network Kanal 5.

The show has also had its fair share of complaints from viewers. Some complaints were directed at the Annoying Devil for his roller coaster stunt where he threw buckets of "vomit" at the passengers.^[9] Balls of Steel responded to OFCOM saying that the vomit used by the Annoying Devil was fake and a disclaimer was added when the episode was repeated. A further complaint to OFCOM was not upheld when the show explained that the "victims" in Neg Dupree's Big Stranger Rodeo Urban Sports segment had been "set up".^[10] Barrie Hall, who played the Annoying Devil in series two and three, said in an interview that "just about everyone we 'get' has been set up by friends!"^[11]

The programme returned for a further series in 2007, for which its makers appealed for contestants for a pilot quiz show on an established quiz site. At least one participant rumbled the deceit almost immediately during filming on 10 June 2006, but despite his queries the makers refused to admit that the quiz was a hoax until the "broadcast" was over.^{[citation needed]}