Sirin Kale (Kamalvand) First hand account of First Round Mastermind Heat

I don’t know if you caught the article by Sirin Kale – who appeared on Mastermind as Sirin Kamalvand last week – about said Mastermind appearance. If you didn’t, can I respectfully suggest that if you’re a regular reader of LAM, then you’ll probably enjoy it a lot. As you’d expect from a professional journalist, this is a very well written account, funny and self-effacing. Go on, if you haven’t read it, click this link. We’ll wait for you until you get back.

I've Started So I'll Panic - Sirin Kale

I didn’t see this article until this morning. I saw a link posted on the Mastermind Club’s Facebook group, then saw the link posted by Martin on a comment left on this week’s Mastermind review. Thanks to both for that.

I always enjoy reading what contenders in the regular series have written about their experiences. One of the things I found most interesting in Sirin’s account was about the horse trading which went on over her specialist subject. I made a point when I wrote the review of saying that I don’t recall a single character of a single TV series being a specialist subject before. Sirin explained how she was not allowed her first choice, The Kardashians (the family, sadly, and not the alien antagonists in Deep Space Nine) nor her second, The Spice Girls, nor her third, Jane Austen. After having her fourth choice subject, ER accepted, Sirin came to realise that 331 hours of television would be too much to absorb for the time available, and negotiated the production team down to just Doug Ross. To be honest this makes all the horse trading over my own first round appearance in 2006 where all of my subjects were rejected in the audition, seem less unusual. While on the same subject, Sirin writes Sirin said, “It seems the producers can refuse many of a contestant’s choices, leaving them to tackle subjects they don’t feel comfortable with. The contestants then don’t have as much time to swot up as they would like.”

Yes, that’s certainly true. But how else could it be done? When I applied in the mid-noughties, your subject choices had to be all nailed down before you received the contract to sign. Without wishing to be horrible, if you get to do subjects that you are 100% happy with and confident about, well, be grateful that you’ve been lucky. For example, in 2006 I had to come up with the Modern Olympic Games off the top of my head. Ideally, it would have just been track and field athletics in the modern Olympic Games. The production team would have preferred all sports in the modern Summer AND Winter Olympic Games. We compromised on just the summer. A hell of a lot more work than I originally planned. Given the choice between accepting that, or not appearing, I reasoned that it was something I could live with. I accepted the subject and got working on it. Likewise, for my grand final the following year, I wanted to just answer on the 1178-1831 old London Bridge. The team insisted on every bridge that has stood on the site and been called London Bridge. I accepted ad did the work. Nobody forces you to accept. If you honestly can’t ‘do’ the subject in the time available to you, it’s better to refuse and try again another time.

Sirin writes, “I later wonder if the producers zeroed in on me because I am a woman of colour, not because I was particularly good: historically, Mastermind has been an overwhelmingly white, male show.” It’s difficult for me to comment on this. I’ve never been party to a conversation with a member of any Mastermind production team over the subject of selection criteria. It’s not the same thing at all, I know, but I did wonder whether the reason why I was accepted at the first time of asking for two consecutive series was because I live in South Wales, while if I was still in London it might have been a lot less likely.

Describing how she felt walking back to the chair for the GK round, Sirin tells us, “All my energy and focus has been on not tanking my specialist subject. Walking back to the chair, I think: should I have prepared for this? Could I have prepared for this?”

That really is the question. If you asked me - did you revise General Knowledge at all for Mastermind? – I would give you the honest answer that I did not revise or learn anything in General Knowledge specifically for my appearance in 2006, or for my first-round heat and my semi final in 2007. I did try to improve a few areas for the final, not to make myself an expert in my weak areas, but enough to help me avoid missing any bread and butter questions in these categories. However, if you asked me – did you prepare for the General Knowledge rounds on Mastermind? I’d reply – absolutely did. My preparation consisted of more than 30 years of being an avid watcher of TV quiz shows since I was quite a young kid, 19 years of playing regularly in pub quizzes and quiz leagues, and 12 years of regularly setting quizzes in the Aberavon Rugby club.

Sirin makes the point that she had only 6 weeks between earning a spot on the show, and the recording. This is the shortest period that I ever had to prepare for one of my own shows. The longest was, if I recall correctly, 12 weeks. With such a relatively short preparation time, I think she was right to concentrate on specialist. The likelihood of being able to ‘question spot’ GK questions in such a short time is very small. At the start of the article, she says, “ I love pub quizzes, sure, and I’m good at them. Pre-Covid, I was part of a crack team called Quizlamic State, who regularly took home first prize in our local one. As team coordinator, I developed a reputation for ruthlessness, brutally ejecting friends and, on one occasion, my boyfriend, if I thought they were underperforming. At university, I was picked for our college’s University Challenge team, though we didn’t get on the show”

I think that’s reasonable grounds for thinking that your GK would be good enough to bring you respectability at least. Yes, if you watched the show you know what happened next. I think that Sirin gives a pretty good clue as to why it might have happened. “when I apply for Mastermind, I haven’t watched it for years. How hard can it be? I think, with the breezy optimism of a rookie journalist thumbing a lift into a war zone.” If Sirin had watched the show, she’d have had an idea of the level and style of the GK questions, and it would have also served as some preparation for the ordeal of the chair in the GK rounds, and maybe wouldn’t have had the ‘mare with the first question which she admits set her on a downward spiral.

One other thing I noticed about the article was the reference to one of the other contenders who repeatedly ignored the director’s requests not to slouch in the chair. (A similar thing happened to me in my first appearance). “One won’t stop slouching in their chair. Producers stop filming and ask them to sit up straight, but they refuse and slump back down again within minutes.” Sirin mentions no name, but I can’t help wondering if this is the contender whom I noticed as one of the most expressive contenders we’ve had for many a long year. Especially when Sirin notes that after the show “I collect myself enough to congratulate the winner, and watch, amused, as the slumper scowls all the way back to their dressing room. I’d have killed for their score, but they’re clearly devastated.”

All in all, this is one of the best first-hand accounts of an appearance on Mastermind that I’ve read in a very long time. If by any chance you ever come to read this Sirin, thank you. You might not have won Mastermind, but you’ve won a fan.