The History Of Mastermind 3) The End of an Era

So we reach the third decade of the History of Mastermind, the 1990s. The 90s proved to be a momentous decade for the show and not only because of the quality of the champions, high though that was. 1993 saw the youngest champion, Gavin Fuller, who held that distinction until 2021, when beaten by the slightly younger Jonathan Gibson. 1995 saw the removal of the one series only rule, and then, in 1997, the show was removed from BBCTV altogether. We’ll come to that.

In 1990 teacher David Edwards won the title, despite having to come through a repechage semi final having narrowly lost out in the first-round heats. David has gone on to have an extremely successful quizzing career. Only another Mastermind champion, Pat Gibson, prevented him from becoming an Egghead in the final of the second series of “Are You An Egghead?” and he was the first Mastermind champion to go on to win £1million on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – Pat Gibson won Millionaire first before winning Mastermind in 2004.

Actor Stephen Allen won in 1991. His professional name is Stephen Tomlin, but he entered, and won, the 1991 series under his own personal name. Stephen was invited into the 2010 Champions series, where he proved he was still no slouch at all by being the second highest scoring runner up from the heats (modesty prevents me from saying who the highest scoring runner up was).

1992 winner, computer programmer Steve Williams, also holds the distinction of being a Countdown octochamp, a distinction he won a few years prior to his Mastermind experiences. Steve did not take part in 2010. I don’t know if he was invited or not, to be perfectly honest, but it’s a shame they couldn’t have all the past champions for the series.

I’ve already mentioned Gavin. In 1993 Gavin’s first round heat specialist subject was Doctor Who. In 2005 there would be a one-off Doctor Who Mastermind competition to celebrate the revival of Doctor Who. Gavin was presented the trophy by the 1977 champion Sir David Hunt – at that time the oldest Mastermind champion.

One other rule change which happened during the 1990s was that contenders were no longer allowed to revert to the specialist subject from their heats if they got to the grand final. Sometimes it happened that it was too difficult to make a fair second set of questions on a given subject and so contenders might be asked to take a different specialist subject anyway. This happened to David Edwards, for example. There was a general feeling that this was rather unfair, and so the fairest thing would be to say that all contenders would have to nominate 3 separate subjects.

The 1994 series was won by the late George Davidson. A university lecturer, in 1965 George had been captain of the Jesus College University Challenge team that reached that year’s semi-finals. To date only one University Challenge winner has gone on to win Mastermind, and we’ll come to him soon.

1995 saw the ending of the ban on appearing in more than one series. In retrospect it seems almost inevitable that the 1995 series should be won by a former contender, and in particular, that it should be won by Kevin Ashman. Kevin Ashman is quite simply a real contender for the title of most successful quizzer ever. Since the noughties he’s probably been best known as one of TV’s Eggheads, but there’s been far more to his career than this. Put simply, when it comes to quizzes, if it’s worth winning then Kevin has won it, and probably more than once. I’m lucky enough to have met Kevin on a number of occasions and have always found him to be a very quiet, self-effacing, modest and friendly guy, in fact, an all-round good bloke. To me, and I would imagine to many other people as well, he is simply the quizzers’ quizzer. Kevin first appeared in the 1987 series when he was beaten in the semi-final. In 1995 he carried all before him, setting a record of 41 that still stands. Never’s a long time, but I can’t see this particular Mastermind record being beaten.

Given the unenviable task of following Kevin, the 1996 series saw clergyman the Reverend Richard Sturch- or ‘Sturch the Church’ as Magnus once called him – become the champion. This was his first attempt at Mastermind, and indeed the next, and as it turned out, last champion of the Magnus era, novelist Anne Ashurst was making her own first appearance as well.

In his book, “I’ve Started So I’ll Finish” Magnus describes receiving the letter telling him that the 1997 series would be the last without any rancour or self-pity. The series was somewhat shorter than had become the norm, and the final took place, at Magnus’ suggestion, in the Cathedral of St. Magnus in Kirkwall on Orkney. Magnus relates that he had arranged that, if the result of the show was in no doubt, then the last question asked would be the first he had asked in the first edition of the show in 1972, about Picasso’s Guernica.  

All good things must come to an end. . . but Mastermind never did. In the same announcement that the 1997 series would be the last, it was also announced that the show would continue on BBC Radio 4. Magnus never mentions this in his book. So I honestly have no idea whether he was asked to do it but turned it down, or whether he was never asked and it was given to Peter Snow. Whatever the case, for the next three years Mastermind joined Radio 4’s extremely strong stable of quizzes, notably Brain of Britain, Counterpoint and Round Britain Quiz.

I’ve always formed the impression that the BBC would rather wipe the radio years out of the history of Mastermind. Three fine champions won in those years – Robert Gibson in 1998, Christopher Carter in 1999, and Stephen Follows in 2000. Stephen incidentally is to date the only University Challenge winner to also win Mastermind. If you look on the official BBC Mastermind Gallery, not only does it not mention Radio 4 Mastermind in the History of the Show section, but the winners’ gallery also jumps from Anne Ashurst in 1997 to Andy Page in 2003. You’d like more evidence? Well, in my grand final in 2007, John Humphrys announced at the start that we were all playing to become the 30^th Mastermind champion. Rubbish. We were playing to become the 30^th BBCTV Mastermind champion, but the 34th champion overall. Mind you, I didn’t tell him so at the time. I doubt that any of the radio champs were invited to take part in the 2010 champions series.

For all that I enjoyed all of the radio Mastermind shows that I listened to, I did think that the show worked better on TV than on radio. Not being able to watch the contenders during their rounds did rob it of one level of tension, in my opinion. Please feel free to disagree. Whatever the case, after 3 years on the radio the show did return to TV in 2001. Not BBCTV, though, but the Discovery Channel. I had mixed feelings after watching some of the shows. While it was great to see the show back on TV, I wasn’t sure that the shorter rounds which were necessary to accommodate the commercial break were a good idea. I didn’t like the incidental music in the show, and I didn’t think that Mastermind and Clive Anderson as question master were a good match for each other. Nonetheless, the show produced an excellent champion in Michael Penrice, a perennial Fifteen to One Grand Finalist, and the last but one teacher to win Mastermind.

If nothing else, maybe Discovery Mastermind encouraged BBCTV to take it back as its own. In 2002 John Humphrys presented the first Celebrity Mastermind. It raised hopes that a new regular series might be just around the corner . . .