Mastermind 2026 First Round Heat 10

I will admit that it has taken me longer to find time to catch up with the blog than I planned this week. Well, at least I’m here now and at least we can bring Mastermind up to date with episode 10’s review.

None of last Monday’s specialists looked as if it was going to be fruitful for me and I will come clean and admit that I only got one on Meg Tapp’s round on the musical ‘Evita’. Meg did pretty well herself, I thought. This was a wide ranging round that covered a lot of ground and for the most part Meg was equal to the challenge. I would stick my neck out and say that 8 and 2 was a pretty good return on this set.

Our second contender was teacher, Ben Abbott. Well, I’m now the very best kind of teacher you can be, that is, a retired one. Last year John Robinson showed that it is still possible for a teacher to win, even with the massive demands that are made on the diligent teacher’s homelife. Ben was answering on The History of Hereford Cathedral. I have seen Hereford Cathedral in the flesh, or should I say the stone, but haven’t ever been inside it. So I’m afraid that I could not add to my aggregate total. Ben whacked in a good 9 to be in the lead halfway through the first round.

Elizabeth Rounding offered us the novels of Sally Rooney. For all the good it did me she might as well have been answering on the novels of Wayne Rooney because I’ve never read any of them either. Mind you, I doubt that he’s written many either. For the third round in the row, while the contender missed 1 or 2 they still put up a good showing. You know I don’t ask a lot of a Mastermind contender. As long as they seem to have prepared for the specialist properly I’m happy. Usually. Elizabeth certainly had.

Alan McDermaid was answering on golfer, the late Severiano Ballesteros. Luckily for me, Seve’s glory years were during the time when the young me absorbed sport knowledge by osmosis so I was able to take four of these to edge my aggregate towards acceptability. It was the pick of the specialist rounds in this show and it guaranteed that the contenders would each return to the chair in the same order as they had gone for the first round. I have no idea why such things make me happy but it did.

First back was Meg and I thought she did very well. She was three off the lead at the turn around, so really and truly she looked like the outsider of the pack. As we so often say, when you’re in the position all you can do is go like the clappers and post the highest total you can. Seeing that Meg posted a double figure score I think that you can fairly say that this she managed to do, at least opening the door to the corridor of doubt for the rest of the contenders.

Ben needed his own double figure round to have any hope of taking the lead. 10 and 1 pass would give him that, 10 and 2 a potential tiebreak and more passes or fewer points would mean no cigar. Well he was on double figures going into the last question, so already in the lead and one more correct answer took him to the psychologically important 20 points. It didn’t mean that he looked like a guaranteed winner, no, but for some reason 20 seems much more of a daunting target than 19, more than the 1 point difference that it actually represents.

It proved too much for Elizabeth Rounding. In the modern era of long questions there’s nothing to be ashamed about of a score of 6. In truth it represents probably 3 wrong guesses, or questions where you zigged when you should have zagged. But it did mean that it can’t have been an easy experience and she did seem very relieved when the round came to an end. She finished with 15.

Only Alan McDermaid could snatch the win away from Ben now. He needed 9 and no passes. Well he managed the no passes which at least meant that he was the only one of the 4 contenders to go through without incurring any. He fell agonisingly short of the 9 required though. Well, that’s the way the digestive crumbles, dear reader.

Well done Ben. Best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Meg Tapp	The Musical ‘Evita’	8	2	11	0	19	2
Ben Abbott	The History of Hereford Cathedral	9	0	11	1	20	1
Elizabeth Rounding	The Novels of Sally Rooney	9	0	6	2	15	2
Alan McDermaid	Seve Ballesteros	11	0	8	0	19	0