Mastermind 2026 First Round Heat 17

You’ll remember last week that things took a bit of an upturn following a very good performance from the winner of that heat. So the big question last night was whether we were going to see this positive trend continuing. In last week’s show I didn’t find any of the specialists that much to my liking. However last night was almost an embarrassment of riches.

The first of these was the Reform Act of 1832, the first great Reform Act. It’s a very interesting subject and generally Catherine Firth was up to the task. She managed 8 to my 3. It’s one of those funny scores nowadays, is 8. It’s a very decent score and means that you won’t be out of it going into the GK but on the other hand it does leave enough room for someone to give themselves a comfortable cushion if they really ace their own specialist.

Sadly, Jonathan Wright did not ace the second of the specialists that I really liked last night, the Castles of South Wales. One of the things I liked about moving to South Wales in the mid-80s was that once I had passed y driving test I could put the kids in the car and we’d go and visit wonderful places like Kidwelly Castle. Jonathan scored 5. Not a disaster although not what he would have been hoping for. With his job as a trainee solicitor, to be honest, it’s a wonder that he found time to prepare for Mastermind at all, so credit where it’s due.I had 4 of these.

It was Paul Smith who came closest to acing his subject. He was offering us the work of Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate. Like many oof my generation I grew up with Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and The Clangers, so I loved this as a subject and happily added five to take my aggregate to 12, which is where it stayed. Paul achieved the first double figure round of this heat and indeed so well did he seem to know his subject that it came as a bit of a shock when he passed. 10 points.

Finally Dr. Farrah Sheikh, who was offering us the band Maroon 5. I like their music when I hear it on the radio but that’s as far as it goes and I didn’t get anything out of this round. Farrah achieved a score of 6, but if she was disappointed she didn’t seem to show it and to all intents and purposes showed the commendable attitude of enjoying her Mastermind experience.

In all honesty it looked to be a two horse race. However, down among the wines and spirits it seemed that nobody had told Jonathan that he was a very long shot to win. He gave us a very good GK round, all the more commendable since some of the questions seemed to have been exhumed from very long ago. He finished with 12 for 17. I have no idea if he will ever consider coming this way again, but if he did, with the right specialist subject he might be a contender.

Sadly, this would not prove to be so true for Farrah. Although the smile never left her face, she never really got to grips with her GK round and put on 7 points to finish with a total of 13.

So to the two horse race. Catherine’s task was just to keep answering and hope to amass enough points to at least put Paul into the corridor of doubt. To be fair, this looked to be just what she managed to do. Sh answered everything which meant that she did not incur any passes and finished with a good 11 to take her total to 19. Paul already had passes so he needed 10 to take him to 20 for an outright win as he could not force a tie break.

Well, Paul had given us the best specialist round earlier and now he gave us the best GK round of the night. As we’ve seen in this series 13 on GK is pretty good going and he never seemed to be in any difficulties during the round at all. For the second week in a row we had a clear winner who seemed to have at least a decent chance in the semis. Well done, Paul and the best of luck to you in the semis.

The Details

Catherine Firth	The Great Reform Act of 1832	8	0	11	0	19	0
Jonathan Wright	The Castles of South Wales	5	3	12	0	17	3
Paul Smith	The Works of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin	10	2	13	0	23	0
Farrah Sheikh	Maroon 5	6	2	7	5	13	7