I’ve just seen an announcement from the BBC that it will show one more series of Celebrity Mastermind and then that will be it. If you’re a regular reader of the blog you’ll know that I greet the news with a certain amount of relief.
At the risk of going over well-trodden ground again,
Mastermind was always a strange choice to beget a celebrity version and I’m
afraid that in more recent years it has become a bit of a source of ridicule,
in part for the low levels of GK shown by the average celebrity, but also due
to the fact that for large sections of the viewing public, we don’t have a clue
about who the majority of the ‘celebrities’ actually are. LAM reader Daniel
Adler hit the nail on the head when he said that it’s coming to something when
you recognise more of the contenders on a heat of the regular series than you
do on an edition of the celebrity show.
I know that all of the contenders in the celebrity show are
giving their services to raise money for charity which is an admirable thing.
But that really does not mean that it’s an enjoyable show to watch. In both
2025 and in 2026 the first round of the regular series was ruined by taking it
off the air to show the celebrity series. In 2026 they even showed a repeat of
the first heat of the celebrity series the week after they broadcast the last
one! And it had been crap the first time as it was!
Well, I can at least remember one entertaining moment from
the show’s 20+ year run. The late Ian Lavender had just sat in the chair, and
when John Humphrys asked “Your name?” Rick Wakeman sitting on contenders row
shouted “Don’t tell ‘im, Pike!” Hey, it made me laugh.
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