Mastermind 2025 First Round Heat 10

Well, dearly beloved, a very interesting show this one was. What made it so? All shall be revealed.

Meanwhile, let’s begin with the specialist round. Braving the curse of the Clark sofa was Susan Cook. I currently work for the NHS, and so does Susan. Now, my banker subject for the evening was Susan’s, the poetry of John Keats. Keats is the first poet whose work I absolutely loved, and I still know it well enough to say with confidence that Susan was given a tough round. Without wishing to be ungallant, though, I have to say that judging by a couple of the questions to which she gave wrong answers, perhaps her prep was just a little undercooked. She scored four. I scored three lonely points, which remained just as lonely by the end of the specialists.

Next was Juliet Harris. Now, I have to say that there seemed to be nothing undercooked about her preparation for the round. Basically anything to do with PJ Harvey was fair game in this round, and Juliet was equal to pretty much all of it. Yeah, she dropped one or two, but then perfect rounds aren’t just good, they’re exceptional. In the end she scored 9 and looked certain to feature in the shake up for the podium places.

Right – here’s a question for you. Which would you say is the rarest British broadcast quiz double? Personally I believe that it’s the UC and Mastermind double. It’s only been done once, by our own Stephen Follows. We’ve had other Mastermind champs who have done very well in UC without winning it, and UC champs who have gone as far as the final of Mastermind too, but landing the double has only been done once. So I was delighted to see Justin Lee who was a key member of the this year’s UC champs from Imperial having a bash. Answering on perennial crowd pleaser Emperor Henry IV he equalled the leader with 9.

I think that the matchmaker for last night had a bit of a sense of humour, since our final contender was also a University Challenger, Lewis Jones, captain of the 2023 Sheffield team eliminated in the Repechage. Answering on the films of David Fincher Lewis did not have a great round, scoring five, but crucially he did not pass, giving himself at least the ghost of a chance.

Susan Cook, realistically, did not have even that being five points behind as we changed ends. So I was impressed with the way she returmed to the chair and delivered a double figure GK round with 10 to take her to fourteen.

I have to say that this was rather put into shadow by what followed. Lewis Jones returned to the chair and whacked in what I felt to be easily one of the finest GK rounds that we’ve seen all series. Lewis snapped out his answers, and didn’t have many wrong’uns either. A magnificent fourteen took his total to 19 and no passes. That meant that anyone wishing to beat him outright would need to hit the psychologically daunting target of 20.

Juliet didn’t manage it. She came close to joining Lewis at the top, but she just ran out of time. In the end she added 9 to her total for a good 18.

This left just Justin Lee. He needed 11 to win outright. To be honest, I think he was just a little off the pace in his GK round, never looking as comfortable as Lewis had. But then Justin is a UC champion, an accolade that they don’t give away with a litre of petrol, and he battled on to score the 10 he needed to equal Lewis. All of which gave us that rarest of rara aves, a tie break. Comparing both contenders’ GK rounds I felt that Lewis, going second, might have just too much firepower for Justin and essentially that’s the way it worked out. Lewis managed to correctly answer four of the five questions while Justin took two.

Very well played, gentlemen. Hard lines to Justin, but hey, you’re a young chap. If you really want to do the double you’ve plenty of time. Congratulations to Lewis. With GK like that, if you can get the right specialist subject, I’d say that you’re one to watch. Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Susan Cook	The Poetry of John Keats	4	0	10	0	14	0
Juliet Harris	P.J. Harvey	9	0	9	0	18	0
Justin Lee	The Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV	9	0	10	0	19	0	2	0
Lewis Jones	The Films of David Fincher	5	0	14	0	19	0	4	0