Attack of the Daves
Yes, its that time of year when the BBC interrupts proper Mastermind, and ejects it from the schedules so that Mastermind Lite, with added celebrities, can take its rightful place on the main channel. I shouldn't be so scathing. I enjoy the sleb version, as I enjoy all the different versions of Mastermind. So, lets get on to last night's show.
For the first programme of this series then it seemed that the main qualification was being called David. We had David Lammy ( who he ? ) , Dave Myers ( ditto ) , and David Harewood ( didn't know the name , but recognised him as some actor chappie ) Toyah Wilcox completed the lineup, and she at least we recognised. She's looking quite well is Toyah, although she looks as if she's rather less eager to turn Suburbia UPSIDE DOWN than she was in her heyday. And I'm sorry but I have no intention of explaining that last reference to the under 40s.
David Lammy was first up. Apparently he was the youngest MP in the House of Commons following the 2000 General Election. He was answering on Muhammed Ali. Now I must confess that Muhammed Ali was a subject I offered which was turned down the first time I applied to Mastermind, and I have to say that Mr. Lammy actually got wrong some questions about very significant moments in Ali's career. Well, he does have the country to run, I suppose, so can be forgiven for not doing his homework.
Dave Myers is actually one half of a quiz question that has done the rounds in the last couple of years. He and his colleague Si King are the Hairy Bikers / Hairy Bakers, who have had their own cookery show on the box. That exhausts my knowledge about the Hairy Bikers. Mr. Myers had an impressively highbrow specialist subject in The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, and he scored a creditable 12.
Toyah, bless'er, took us to the other end of the spectrum, answering questions on David Bowie. Now, the Thin White Duke has been around for longer than Mastermind has, and so Toyah limited her frame of reference to just the first ten years of his career. Toyah managed 10 on some quite obscure questions.
David Harewood is one of those actors whose name might mean nothing to you, but whose face you'd recognise straightaway. John Humphrys himself paid tribute to Mr. Harewood's appearence in the series Criminal Justice.Answering questions on Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, he raced away to a highly impressive 17.
So at the halfway stage its a one horse race, with David Harewood holding a five point lead over his closest challenger, Hairy Biker Dave Myers. David Lammy returned to the chair, and fared less well in his GK round than he had in his specialist. I think that the occasion had got to him. He scored 5 , but his face registered that he'd known many of the questions he passed on, but just couldn't get them out, through nerves or whatever. Toyah looked delighted when her round was over. To be fair she gave it a fair old crack of the whip, but I don't think General Knowledge quizzes are really her thing at all.
Dave Myers seemed to be enjoying himself immensely - and why not ? Apparently most of his career in television has been as a makeup artist , and now here he is with a TV series about two of his loves - bikes and cooking. He went at the GK questions with real gusto, dropped a few, but made an impressive 12 and 1 pass, which exactly matched his specialist score. That's good quizzing.
So David Harewood needed 8 to win outright, and the way he went at his specialist questions you'd have put money on him to do just that. However he got trapped in a bit of a pass spiral, and by the time the end of the round came he'd scored only 7, to give him 24, the same as Dave Myers. However the hairy one had only 2 passes, to Mr. Harewood's 6 passes. So well done, all of you, a very good and exciting show.
The Details
| David Lammy | Muhammed Ali | 8 - 1 | 5 - 5 | 13 - 6 |
| Dave Myers | The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood | 12 -1 | 12 - 1 | 24 - 2 |
| Toyah Wilcox | David Bowie 1967 - 77 | 10 - 3 | 4 - 5 | 14- 8 |
| David Harewood | His Dark Materials Trilogy | 17 - 1 | 7- 5 | 24 - 6 |
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