Vintage Mastermind on BBC4

Of course, the silver lining to the cloud of having no new episode of Mastermind tomorrow night is that we do have an episode of Mastermind from 1977 on BBC4. The specialist subjects are The Alps, symphony orchestra instruments, children’s literature and the Old Testament.

I remember the 1977 series well. I turned 13 in 1977 and I’m pretty sure I watched most if not all of the shows in the series. It had really got into its stride by then and was well on the way to becoming a national institution. The 1977 series was won by Sir David Hunt, retired diplomat. I remember that in his heat he was defeated by, if I recall correctly, Lord Timothy Beaumont, when, according to Magnus’ book, he became rather too interested in the questions. He didn’t make that mistake in the repechage or the final.

He’s not in tomorrow night’s show, the first episode of the series, well, not according to the photo on the Mastermind webpage. 9pm tomorrow.

Seriously, does anyone actually like the long questions?

Being a quizzer and an ex-teacher means I could probably moan for Britain (England through birth, Scotland through ancestry or Wales through long term residency. I also have Irish ancestry, but too many generations back for me to qualify and French Huguenot ancestry from even further back. )  And one of the things long term viewers of Mastermind do like to moan about is the length and wordiness of too many of the questions. This is not exactly news to anyone, is it? Now, on the odd occasions that I have heard anyone official justifying this the argument has been that it plays fairer to the viewers at home who then have a bit more time to think of the answer yuttah yuttah.

I wonder. Is it maybe just possible that the repeat of episodes from Mastermind – The Original Series on Monday evenings at 9pm will maybe encourage the production team to rethink this? As I noted in a previous post, BBC4 repeated the 1972 Grand Final last Monday. Yes, there were some notable differences between this first final and what Mastermind – The Next Generation has become. But one of the things worth noting was the sheer speed with which the rounds moved . Yes, okay, the specialists were 2 and a half minutes long, and the GK 3 minutes long, but blimey, they didn’t half cover some ground and get through a lot of questions. To me, that’s a lot more exciting than watching the poor old contender sit through a question so long that you’ve forgotten the start of the question before Clive has got to the end of it, who then passes or gives a wrong answer anyway.

And the thing is it doesn’t seem to be only me who feels this way. That bastion of truth, honesty and fair play, the Daily Express, published a thundering article in the week, claiming that angry viewers had blasted the performance of last Monday’s 4 contenders. Typical clickbait rubbish, but what was interesting was the number of comments from viewers unfavourably comparing the questions on the current show compared with the 72 final. With the best will in the world, I do think that the style of questions at the moment makes it very hard for a contender to build up any momentum, and I honestly think that with shorter questions the average GK scores of the contenders at least would increase. Blimey, it’s got to be worth a try, at least.

Mastermind Grand Final 1972

I don’t know if it was planned because the BBC knew that a pretty underwhelming edition of Mastermind was showing earlier in the evening and they wanted to give the fan something more meaty by way of apology, but after UC last night, over on BBC4 we had Sally Magnusson giving us her memories of the show during her much missed Dad’s 25 year stint as question master. I really rather enjoyed this 15 minute show – although even if I hadn’t I would have forgiven her anyway because when I met her in person she was handing me my Mastermind bowl.

This was followed by the 1972 Mastermind final. I found this really interesting as I’m pretty sure I have never seen it before. Although much of what we remember about the show during the Magnus years was in evidence, there were some quite unusual aspects. Firstly there were only 3 contenders – Nancy Wilkinson, Beryl Leatham Thomas and Joan Taylor. Secondly, these rounds were long – 2 and a half minutes on specialist and 3 minutes on GK. Much of this has been written about in Magnus’ own “I’ve Started So I’ll Finish”, his history of the first 25 years of the show. But to continue – the specialist categories were extremely broad, and I can guarantee that they’d be a lot more narrowly defined if taken today. As it was, I got double figures on Nancy’s round on the History of Music just from my general knowledge.

There was no mention of passes being counted in the event of a tie, and indeed all three contenders showed no hesitation and passed a lot more than you would have expected.

Anothr thing that intrigued me was that Joan Taylor, the last contender to go in the GK round, had reached 35 in response to Nancy’s 37, and immediately after Magnus asked the question, the buzzer went. AT which the audience burst into applause, and she never answered. Under the established rules, Magnus would have said that she could answer at this stage, but she didn’t even try. It wouldn’t have made any difference, but I found it a bit surprising.

You knew that this was recorded in the early 70s when Magnus came across just a little bit patronising when he made the point that all 3 finalists had to beat male opposition to get to the final.

One thing you didn’t see is a story that Magnus tells in the book, where he explains that with the GK rounds being 3 minutes long, Nancy went so quickly that he ran out of questions! Bosworth Taylor had to get a copy of the World Book and make up some more while Nancy waited. You couldn’t tell from watching the show, though.

Do you know what? I wouldn’t mind watching a few more like this.

Adios, Sleb Mastermind

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.

Sheep and Goats

I once had it said to me that anyone can have one good specialist round in Mastermind but it’s having two good specialist rounds in a row that sorts the men out from the boys, or the sheep from the goats, or whatever happens to be your analogy of choice.

I’m not totally sure I agree. For one thing not just anyone can have one good specialist round. There’s a number of factors which can work against you. There might be a mismatch between your understanding of the parameters of the subject and the question setter’s. You may have inadvertently chosen a subject that is just too wide. You might be under the weather on the day or overwhelmed by the atmosphere and the experience of actually being in THE chair. For whatever reason you might have been underprepared as well – family or work circumstances, hubris or just plain laziness.

I stress now that I haven’t carried out any kind of statistical analysis on this but it’s my impression that having a ‘mare is less likely on your second subject than your first. Just taking the current series, if we take the arbitrary score of 7 as an underperformance on Specialist, the of the 16 specialist rounds we’ve seen in the semi finals of this series so far, only four of them fell into this category. This may well be because you’ve already shown that you can prepare one specialist subject well to get you into the semis in the first place.

For what it’s worth I always found it helpful to view any subject I felt I could take on as being equally good. Once you start saying things like – I used up my best subject on the first round – you are actually giving yourself excuses for not preparing the next subject as well as you can. And as in real life, preparation is the best guarantee of success you ca possibly give yourself.

Discovering Discovery Mastermind - or not, as the case may be.

Okay, so if you’ve been following my recent posts on LAM you’ll know that one wee half term task that I set myself was to fill the gaps in my Mastermind contender database. The stumbling block I’ve come a cropper on is 2000/2001’s Discovery Mastermind.

Through UK Gameshows I found a database list of all contenders from 1972 until 2003, however the caveat with this is that it can only provide a very incomplete list of Discovery Mastermind contenders, 15 in all. I’ve managed to extend that to 26, largely thanks to finding Brian Daugherty’s videos of his 3 appearances on Discovery Mastermind on Youtube. Thanks for that Brian.

Other than that, though, I’ve found precious little out there to help. Which I suppose shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Being on Discovery I can’t imagine a massive number of people actually watched the series. A quick glance at the BBC’s official Mastermind website shows that although the BBC did, I think, make the show for the Discovery Channel, they are not the least bit interested in it, or the radio 4 shows for that matter. It’s a shame, and it does make it difficult to find any information about the series.

This is what I’ve managed to gather about the series. In the introduction to the third round match on Youtube, Clive Anderson announced that there were 24 contenders left in the round. In each show I watched the top 2 scorers went through to the next round. This suggested 48 contenders in round 2 and therefore 96 in round 1. Working on this principle round 4 must have had 12 contenders, and round 5 must have been the final. I think. If this is true, then there must have been 24 first round heats, 12 second round, 6 third round and 3 fourth round. Adding on a final this makes a total of 42 shows – by some distance the longest series ever. If I’m right.

There’s questions that all of this brings to mind. I’m not clear on whether the contenders had to learn a brand new subject for each round as they do now. If so, hen if I have it right the contenders would have had to learn five subjects in all if they reached the final. Purely in terms of time that’s a hell of an undertaking. Thinking of my own series, I had about 8 weeks to learn for my first round after being confirmed with a place in the first round. I had something like 12 weeks to prepare for the semi-final. I only had 6 weeks to prepare for the final and you’d better believe me when I tell you that I needed all 6 of them. Maybe contenders were allowed to re-use subjects at some point. Maybe you know what happened – I’d love to hear from you if you do.

I admit that I’ve only some vague memories from more than 2 decades and 3 youtube videos to go on, but I have a few opinions about what I saw. Firstly that it was a real sprint. I knew that the round were shorter, but I hadn’t realised how much shorter. The specialist rounds were 70 seconds long, and the GK 75 seconds. Which maybe explains why Clive Anderson was selected as quiz master, since he could fire off the questions at speed. You rarely see a score of less than 5 on a GK round nowadays. In Discovery Mastermind 4 would have been a decent, relatively competitive specialist score. Even with Clive Anderson’s most machine-gun-esque delivery I think that the maximum available on a GK round would have been about 10. Heaven alone knows how the show would have fared had the questions been as long as they’ve been for the last few years.

I didn’t find the incidental music played while the contenders walked to the chair, and then while they were answering the questions to be quite as awful as it sounds. I didn’t like the idea though, and I don’t really think it adds anything at all to the show in terms of entertainment value. Likewise, asking viewers on Sky to vote for who they thought was the ‘brainiest’ contender was frankly a bit naff.

Well, there we are. If you can enlighten me any more about the show I’d love to hear from you. If you were a contender on Discovery Mastermind yourself, and you’d be prepared to share your memories of the show that would be absolutely brilliant, and I’d love to hear from you.

Mastermind's '6 and Over Club'

I’ve pretty much completed my database of contenders with the help of you wonderful LAM readers. You may recall that it was me checking to see how many series that Mel Kinsey has taken part in that made me remember that the database is incomplete. Well, checking this it occurred to me to wonder who have appeared on the most number of shows. I say shows because it is possible to appear in three shows in any given series if you get to the final. I thought it might be interesting to share this with you.

Now, I should state from the start that I do make mistakes, and if I have made any in this, then I apologise. Also, this might not be completely accurate, since I have only very limited information about Discovery Mastermind in 2001. So where contenders on the list appeared on Discovery Mastermind to my knowledge, I have only counted one appearance.

I have only included known appearances on regular Mastermind – the original series, the radio series, Discovery Mastermind and the revived series. This means I haven’t included appearances on Champion of Champions – which would push Geoff Thomas up to double figures.

As it is, he’s in the top 5. There’s no surprise that the late Hamish Cameron holds the record for both the number of series in which he appeared and the number of individual shows in which he appeared. Likewise triple finalist Mark Grant shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone. 13 shows from 5 series gives him an average of 2.6 shows per series. Which is only the third best since Diane Hallagan’s 8 from 3 series gives her an average of 2.67. Which is not quite as good as Ian Bayley’s 6 from 2 series, an unbeatable average of 3. John Beynon, Neil Wright and Roger Canwell all also have an average of slightly higher than 2 shows per series.

Does it matter? Well, no, in the great scheme of things I don’t suppose that it does very much. But it’s interesting. It’s also interesting to speculate whether Hamish’s total will ever be beaten. It won’t be beaten by Isabel following her win. Mel speculated on Facebook earlier this week about making an appearance in his 80s but didn’t say that he would. I have no idea what Mark’s plans are but considering he has a very good claim to being the greatest contender never to actually win a series so far you’d have to say it’s a possibility. Another final appearance would equal the record for shows.

Then if we look down to the 8s our own Rachael ‘Cherryade’ Neiman-Wiseman has more than once been just a whisker away from getting to the final. Only she could say if she intends keeping going until she makes it, but if she did, then she’d certainly join the double figures club.

Whatever the future holds, I raise a metaphorical glass to all the members of the 6 and over club and offer a heartfelt apology to anyone I’ve missed out.

Name	No of Series	No of Shows
Hamish Cameron	8	16
Mark Grant	5	13
Isabelle Heward	5	10
Mel Kinsey	6	10
Geoff Thomas*	4	9
David Love	5	8
Diane Hallagan	3	8
Rachael Neiman-Wiseman	4	8
Gillian Taylor	4	7
Hazel Humphreys	4	7
John Beynon	3	7
Les Morrell	4	7
Neil Wright	3	7
Roger Canwell	3	7
Stewart Cross*	4	7
Beth Webster	5	6
Brian Daugherty	4	6
Colin Daffern	3	6
Derek Moody	4	6
Gareth Kingston	3	6
Ian Bayley	2	6
Paula Keaveney	4	6
Sheila Altree **	4	6
Wendy Forrester	3	6

 *I don’t have complete records on Discovery Mastermind, so it’s quite possible that these contenders had more than one appearance in that series – I have credited them with just the one until I know better.

**Sheila appeared in the 1985 series first round after having previously appeared under her previous name. Before 1995 contenders were not allowed to appear in more than one series, and so after winning her first round heat in 1985 Sheila was disqualified. Had this not happened then she would definitely have made at least one other appearance.

Mastermind Contender Database - 2020 now complete

Huge thanks to Paul Gilbert for sending me the complete list of 2020 contenders. I believe that my database is pretty much complete apart from Discovery Mastermind. I have about a dozen names from the series but will keep looking to add any more I can find. 

Mastermind Contender Database - 2021 now complete.

 Special thanks to Ashton Davies, who responded to yesterday's request for help with a complete list of contenders in the 2021 series. It's just 2020 missing now - and of course Discovery Mastermind if anyone could possibly help with that. Crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath. 

My Mastermind Contender Database - could you help?

When I saw Mel on yesterday’s heat of Mastermind, I went to my database to check how many series he’s taken part in. This reminded me that it is incomplete. Using various sources my database is pretty complete on the original series and Radio Four Mastermind from 1972 until 2000. I’m also complete (I think) on the revived series from 2003 – 2019. I’m also complete with the 2021/22 season.

However, apart from finalists I have no records of the 2019/20 and the 2020/21 seasons. These coincided with my lost weekend period. Not an excuse, just the way that things were then.

So I’m just putting it out there. If anyone reading can help me add any names to the database who took part in either of these series, then could you please comment on this post? All I need would be the name, and how far the contender reached – first round/ semifinal/ final – although as I say I do already have the 6 finalists of both series. I know I’m unlikely to get a complete list but I’d be grateful for any names I could add to the database.

Likewise, I really haven’t been able to find out much about the contenders in Discovery Mastermind in 2001, and so any help that anyone could give me on this score would be gratefully received as well. Thanks in advance.

University Challenge at 60

 I've just been looking at the schedule for the next week on the iplayer, and it has confirmed that the new series of University Challenge starts on BBC2 at 8:30 following Only Connect, which begins series 18 at 8pm. Happy days - quizzy Mondays are back. No sign of Mastermind returning yet, but soldier on. At the bottom of the BBC's own Mastermind Website History fo the Show page it does say that the show returns in September 2022.

Straight after the first match, though, I noticed there's a special documentary - University Challenge at 60. Fantastic - and it's well deserved by the show. It's an hour long too, so well done, BBC. It's followed by the film, Starter for Ten. So full marks for recognising this milestone.

On the other hand, I've still not found out any information regarding when the next series of Mastermind is going to start. I hope - without necessarily a massive amount of anticipation - that the BBC are intending to mark the 50th Anniversary of Mastermind somehow. In purely symbolic terms if nothing else, 50 is a hugely significant number, which the BBC recognised ten years ago when they celebrated University Challenge reaching the milestone with a similar evening to that planned on Monday. This, mind you, even considering that University Challenge, this most archetypal of BBC quiz shows, was shown on ITV for the first 25 years of its existence. Mastermind has always been made for the BBC, even if it hasn't been made by the BBC for the last few years. On the BBC Mastermind web pages, on the History of the Show page it does say "Mastermind celebrates its 0th Anniversary in 2022'. Well it doesn't actually say 'Mastermind celebrates its anniversary in 2022 (but we don't)' so one can only hope.

Look, you know me well enough by now, and how defensive about Mastermind I can be. I can't help it. I do hope that the BBC mark the anniversary in some way. Even if they've decided not to involve past champions - or even if they do involve past champions but not me - I can live with that. But as I hope hat I showed when I wrote about the history of the show a few months back, there is an interesting story to be told there. 

The History of Mastermind: Towards a 6th Decade

The later years of the fifth decade of the show would bring some of the greatest upheavals since the 2003 TV revival. We’ll come to that.

In the 2014 Grand Final, the man who has faced the black chair on more occasions than any other contender, Hamish Cameron, reached his first Grand final. According to my own database – which may well be less than perfect, I admit, Hamish appeared in no fewer than 8 separate series. I believe he was a 6 times semi-finalist, and reached the final in his last two series, 2014 and 2019. Putting that into perspective, I believe that he faced 15 specialist rounds, and 15 general knowledge rounds in the chair altogether. Sadly, Hamish passed away a matter of days before the broadcast of the 2019 final. In 2014 Hamish was beaten by Clive Dunning, who would go on to add the Brain of Britain title to his CV. Runner up was Brian Chesney, who for a few years was saddled with the reputation of being the ‘nearly man’, after becoming runner up in both Mastermind and Brain of Britain. Well, his time would come.

Up to the 2015 Grand Final, only one of the revived series champions had been a woman. Many people fancied that this could change in 2015. Diane Hallagan had previously reached the Grand Final in 2011. However, in the final Diane fell just a little short, and was eclipsed by Marianne Fairthorne, who won a very tight and exciting final on pass countback, just beating David Greenwood. Marianne had been one of the highest scoring heat runners up, and her victory justified the reinstatement of the repechage places a few years earlier.

Of course, if the 2015 final was tight, then 2016’s would prove to be even tighter and not without controversy. At the halfway stage Jim Maginnis had a 2-point lead over Alan Heath. Alan scored 2 points more on GK than Jim did. Neither contender had passed at all, and so we had a Grand Final Tiebreak. As it happened, we had two, since the contenders both later explained that there had, in fact, been 2 tie breaks, since both Alan and Jim had the same score in the first. The BBC won no friends by editing out the first tiebreak when the final was broadcast. Alan won the second and was duly crowned the champion. The controversy came when, in the broadcast, it was noted that John Humphrys read out the wrong year for Frank Sinatra’s death in Jim’s GK round. Both contenders reacted with grace and dignity. We’re all human, and human beings make mistakes from time to time.

I’ve already paid tribute to Hamish, who made it to the Grand Final on his 7^th attempt. 2017 belonged to another stalwart of the show, Isabelle Heward. Before 2017, Isabelle had appeared in 4 series, losing out in the semi final of the last three. It wasn’t easy for her to reach that 2017 final either, since it required a 3 way tiebreak in her semi-final. Then, in the Grand Final she was 3 points off the lead after the specialist round. However a superb round of 17 on GK brought her the win.

If at first you don’t succeed, in Mastermind, then try, try again. It doesn’t always bring success, but it did so for Isabelle in 2017, and it did again in 2018. Brian Chesney finally laid his grand final hoodoo to rest. Joint leader at the halfway stage after the specialist round, he ran away with a monster score of 19 on GK.

Big changes were in the air. Even before the 2019 series began broadcasting in the Autumn of 2018, the BBC had put the production of the show out to tender from independent production companies. It’s fair to say that the show had come under criticism from some quarters due to the length of the majority of the questions being asked. Many people, me included, felt that the length of the questions did, at times, seem ridiculous. Certainly question setters were under fairly strict instructions as to the way the questions should be couched. The tendering process was won by Hat Trick and Hindsight, who would produce the show from the 2020 series onwards.

In the meantime, the BBC production team introduced a couple of cosmetic changes to the show which left many of us scratching our heads a little bit. Contenders would no longer sit on the side, facing the chair while waiting for their turn. Instead they would have to walk through a neon portal to the chair for their specialist round, then be marched off the set again. They would all be brought back together before the GK round, but not actually told the order in which they would be returning to the chair. To be honest, I couldn’t really see the point of these changes, and I was glad to see them quietly dropped by the start of the 2020 series.

As for the 2019 series, we’ve already seen that Hamish Cameron reached his second final. We would also see Mark Grant reach his third final, an outright Mastermind record. While it would have been fitting for either Hamish or Mark to win and create a treble of perseverance champions in 2017,18 and 19, it was not to be. The final was actually won by Judith Lewis. There was just a little hint of controversy about whether Judith said ‘gerbil’ or ‘jerboa’ in response to a GK question. The discussion was purely academic. Even if Judith had not been given that point, she would still have won on pass countback.

So farewell, then, BBC production, and hello Hat Trick and Hindsight for the 2020 series. I for one was pleased to see that they had sensibly adopted a policy of – if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, but if it is broken then fix it. So the cosmetic changes of the previous season were quietly dropped. Sadly, so were the repechage slots for highest scoring runners up. The questions were still on the long side, but nonetheless there was evidence that the show may well be taking on a renewed vitality. The 2020 Grand Final was won by Dave McBryan. Predictably there was a little comment on the fact that Dave is a professional quiz master. The majority view, that Mastermind is meant to be a serious challenge for the best and you don’t discount applications because the applicant might actually be good is one I have always agreed with.

As the 2021 series began in late 2020, John Humphrys announced that he was stepping down from the question master’s role. On a personal note I have mixed feelings about John Humphrys. I still don’t understand why he couldn’t have just popped his head around the door after the 2008 (2007) final to offer a word before he went. I do think that his was an important hand in lengthening the show’s questions, which I feel had a detrimental effect on the show. However, on set he was a great broadcaster in my view. I will never forget his assured handling of my Grand Final.

Still, as speculation about who would become the new host abounded, the 2021 series continued, and in the shape of Jonathan Gibson we had a challenger to Gavin Fuller’s status as the youngest ever Mastermind Champion. He looked like a good contender in the first round. In the semi final he looked like a great one, and very much a potential champion. Come the Grand Final, he was still younger than Gavin had been in 1993. You might have expected that maybe this would have weighed on him a bit but come the Grand Final and he absolutely smashed it. He led by a point after the first round, and with a brilliant 17 in the GK round he won going away from the pack.

In March of 2021 the news broke that Clive Myrie was to be the new host of Mastermind. The news was greeted with general approval. Although in a couple of quarters fears had been expressed that a light entertainment personality might be parachuted in, most commentators felt that the new host had to have a BBC news background, with the name of Samira Ahmed gaining approval in many quarters. Still, even though she didn’t get the nod, on paper Clive fit the bill well.

Not just on paper, either. With the exception of a few brainless, racist internet trolls, reaction to Clive Myrie as host throughout the most recent series in 2022 has been extremely positive. With regards to his style as question master, many have noticed his willingness to speed up his delivery to match the fastest contenders. Magnus Magnusson himself used to do the same, and I can give no higher praise than that.

Sometimes the final is won by narrow margins, as in 2019. Sometimes it’s won by one contender blowing away the competition, as happened in 2021. In 2022, a similar thing occurred. Coming into the final a couple of the finalists had commendably consistent records in both heat and semi, while others had shown that they were capable of high scores in GK, but also in not so high scores. Alice Walker led after the specialist round. Then, in the GK round she had the round of her life and achieved a monster total of 19 to win by 6 points.

Which all brings us up to date. I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t say how long BBC will choose to continue with Mastermind. Just because a show has lasted in one form or another for 50 years, doesn’t mean that the BBC won’t one day decide that it is surplus to requirements again. Hopefully not for the foreseeable future though, and here’s to us all being here in 2032, celebrating its diamond anniversary. Cheers!

The History Of Mastermind Part 4 : BBCTV Mastermind Take Two

Mastermind returned to BBC TV on the last but one day of 2002. I don’t know if this celebrity special was only ever intended to be a one-off, but it certainly spawned the popular Celebrity Mastermind, which has run for 20 series since and shows no sign of running out of steam any time soon. For the record, those first game celebrities were Janet Street-Porter, Vic Reeves, Adam Hart-Davies and winner Jonathan Meades. The main differences between the celebrity version and the regular show are that each show within a series is self-contained. The winner gets a trophy and doesn’t have to go through to a semi final or a final. Another difference is that winning celebrities can still come back on the show, and some have even won more than once.

In may ways the best thing about the first celebrity show is that it made the return of the regular show to the BBC seem a distinct possibility. And indeed, on the 7^th July 2003 the first of 12 heats was broadcast. Heat winners advanced to the semi finals, and the  semi final winners contested the final. In the final civil servant Andy Page won a tight contest to become the first champion of the new, John Humphrys era.

Now that John Humphrys has retired from the show, we can maybe come to a reasoned appraisal of his tenure. I don’t know that he ever became quite as indelibly a part of the show in the public consciousness as Magnus had during the show’s first incarnation. In part this may well be because of circumstances beyond his control. After the 1973 scheduling shift, for the rest of its run to 1997 Mastermind was shown on BBC1. TV audiences for any shows were generally larger for any kind of show in the pre internet and pre satellite/cable days in which the show was first established, so it was far easier for a show to etch itself deeply on the national consciousness.

I’ve always wondered whether Jeremy Paxman’s selection to host “University Challenge” from its revival in 1994 had an influence on John Humphrys’ selection for Mastermind. In the case of UC, Bamber Gascoigne politely turned down the opportunity of picking up the reins for the revival, so it seems to me that the producers may well have gone for a conscious choice of ‘and now for something completely different’. For me that approach hadn’t worked in Discovery Mastermind, with cleverdick Clive Anderson seeming a very poor fit for the question master’s chair. Fair enough. If University Challenge could use BBCTV’s most renowned political interview rottweiler, then surely Mastermind could use BBC Radio’s.

Whatever the case, response to new Mastermind was favourable enough, and by the later semis John H. was inviting members of the public to apply for the 2004 series. While the 2003 series consisted of 17 shows in total, that was raised to 31 for 2004, and every series since has consisted of the same number of shows. 24 heat winners progressed to 6 semi-finals, and the 6 winners progressed to the final. The final was won by barrister Shaun Wallace, who became the first black Mastermind champion. It was the start of a memorable TV career for Shaun. He lost out on becoming an Egghead when defeated by Barry Simmons in the first series of Are You An Egghead?, however he soon became the first Chaser on ITV’s highly popular The Chase.

The 2005 series was won by one of the few quizzers who can challenge Kevin Ashman for the title of the most successful quizzer. Like Kevin, if it’s worth winning, then Pat Gibson has probably won it. A year or two before appearing on Mastermind, Pat had already won the £1 million prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. In the 2005 final Pat answered on Father Ted. I mention it, because this sitcom is often quoted along with Fawlty Towers and Harry Potter as one of the three subjects that more applicants request as specialist subject choices than any other. Runner up in his final was future Brain of Britain champion Mark Grant, who has now, I believe, made more grand final appearances than any other contender. Pat went on to win the joyous 2010 Champion of Champions tournament, which I was privileged to have a ringside seat for having been the highest scoring runner up n the heats, and therefore being stand in for the final.

This leads nicely to the 2006 series, which was won by the 2003 runner up, Geoff Thomas. It was also the series which saw my own first appearance on Mastermind. I was beaten in the heats by Kath Drury who achieved the highest of all the scores in the semi-finals. As one of three highest scoring runners up, I got to attend the semi-finals as a stand in. I didn’t get to take part, but at least I got to watch the semi-finals as they happened. After this I was convinced that Geoff was going to win the final – he honestly looked a different class, Kath’s performance notwithstanding. The other  talking point was the, at the time, record low specialist subject score in the semi finals.

Geoff was presented the trophy for winning the final by Magnus Magnusson himself. Sadly, the following year saw Magnus pass away in the January, and it’s fair to say that the 2007 series rightly served as something of a memorial to the great man. The decision had been made prior to the start of the series to begin broadcasting the heats in the late summer, which meant that the final would not be broadcast until the end of March 2008. However, the shows were all in the can by the middle of June. The final was actually filmed on 15th June 2007, which by coincidence was my birthday. As a tribute to Magnus it was held in Glasgow Caledonian University, a place very dear to Magnus’ heart, where he had served as Chancellor. The trophy was presented by his daughter, broadcaster Sally Magnusson. I’m perfectly fine with not being one of the most distinctive or distinguished champions, but I think my win was noteworthy for a couple of reasons. I was the first – and only – schoolteacher to win during the Humphrys era (and at time of writing am still the last to do so.) Also, I am the only champion to date to be knocked out in the first round of one series, and come straight back to win the very next series.

In the early days of the Mastermind, the first four winners were all schoolteachers or college lecturers, and the first three champions were all women. New Mastermind had its first schoolteacher champion in 2007. 2009 would bring its first woman champion, Nancy Dickmann. Nancy’s series was the first that I covered in LAM, and it’s a matter of some pride to me that I tipped her as the most likely contender in the series to become the first woman to win in the revived show. I did, I will admit, tip Ian Bayley to win the final, while he in fact came second behind Nancy. In my defence, Ian was a top Masterminder, as he would go on to prove in his next final appearance in 2011.

In 2010, the production team finally bowed to requests to reinstate the semi final places for the highest scoring runners up. As series of Mastermind go, I look back on 2010 as a classic. There were so many very fine quizzers involved. Reading my preview back, for the final I couldn’t decide who to tip as the most likely champ between Jesse Honey and Kathryn Johnson, and indeed they did take the first two spots on the podium. In the final Jesse scored a Humphrys era record of 37 – which would, incidentally have won many of the finals in the Magnus era as well. The recording of the heats of the 2010 champions series took place just a couple of days before the broadcast of Jesse’s final. Jesse was runner up in the tournament, however, in his heat he set the all-time record of 23 points for a single round, answering on Flags. That was a 2-minute round as well.

In 2011, Ian Bayley bounced back from his narrow defeat in 2009, to add the Mastermind title to the Brain of Britain title he’d won the previous year. His Brain of Britain performance was the most commanding win in many a long year – I know because I was sitting next to him at the time. He was also a member of the all conquering Crossworders team which won the first series of Only Connect. In 2011 Ian made no mistakes, and won comfortably, equalling Jesse’s modern era record of 37 from the previous final.

During 2010 my team, the Radio Addicts, reached the final of the 4th series of Only Connect. Neil Phillips, captain Gary Grant and I spent a fair bit of time together on the filming days for the show, and skipper Gary shared with us his desire to become a Mastermind champion. He’d reached the semi finals in Nancy’s series in 2009, but this was never going to be enough for him. In 2012 his ambition came to fruition. In the grand final, Gary scored a spectacular 19 on his specialist subject of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises, and in the end won with a total of 35, 5 points ahead of Andy Tucker, an excellent quizzer in his own right. Gary was the second medical doctor to win the title, following in the footsteps of 1987 champion Dr. Jeremy Bradbrooke.

So to the 2013 series. In the previous 3 finals the winners had all scored in the high 30s. From 2013 onwards, there was a move towards longer questions, which worked to make monster scores like this very much the exception rather than the rule. Nonetheless the Grand Final in 2013 was a very keenly fought contest, and was won by charity director Aidan McQuade. I’ve never met Aidan yet, nor had any communication with him, but his attitude towards the show is one that I’ve always been able to run up the flagpole and salute. Aidan said that he wasn’t that bothered about winning or losing, for him it was all about the ‘craic’, the giving it a go, and the camaraderie between the contenders. Amen to that.

So that’s our first 10 seasons of the revived series. In the next and final installment, we’ll bring the show up to the present day.

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 . . .

The History of Mastermind: Part 2: Fred and Co.

I’ve been a schoolteacher for 35 years now, and what’s more, I’m still the last schoolteacher to win Mastermind – although not the last educator. But I still remember how happy I was that London taxi driver Fred Housego won the 1980 series. I’ve said on this very blog on more than one occasion that I’ve never yet met Fred, and I would absolutely love to. (Fred, if by any chance you read this, I’m serious. Just drop me a message and let’s get it on.) It’s not like I grew up in a socially deprived area of London – I didn’t. But I always identified with the contenders from more - God, this is going to sound patronising - more ’humble’ professions. My old man was a mechanic (on a good day. On a bad day he was a boozy lush, but that’s another story for another time.) My mum was a housewife who had been a secretary. Nothing to be ashamed of there (apart from my Dad). But as a family we didn’t have a professional background. Friends of the family tended to be more like Fred than previous winners.

In the 70s and early 80s, until I went away to University, Mastermind was a show we would watch together as a family. I remain convinced that this was a practice which helped make me into a quizzer, because not only did you have to try to shout out the answer to a question before the contender on the telly, you also had to try to shout it out before anyone else in the room at the time. We also used to have our favourites in each series, and we liked Fred right from his first round. We’d felt the same about Philip Jenkins in 1979.

After he won his final, Fred became an instant celebrity, and within a couple of years he had a regular spot on London Weekend’s 6 O’Clock show, and his own TV series “History on Your Doorstep” One of these was about the London Borough of Ealing where I grew up, and very good it was too.

After this exuberance, normal service seemed to be resumed when schoolteacher Leslie Grout won in 1981. But the door was now open. Leslie wouldn’t be the last schoolteacher to win, but from now on they’d be the exception rather than the rule.

So, by 1982, the show had been running for 10 years. We’d had ten champions, and so the time was ripe to hold the first Champion of Champions tournament. Except that it wasn’t. The first I mean. Way back in 1975, immediately after John Hart’s final, a special called Supermind was filmed, pitting the first 4 champions in a winner takes all showdown. It beggars belief that you’d expect anyone to compete in this immediately after winning a Mastermind final. But then the Beeb had previous form on this score, when Patricia Owen had to film her Grand Final immediately after winning her semi final in 1973. Supermind was a close contest, and Nancy won the tie break. I believe that another Supermind contest happened sometime later, when the champ of that series took on luminaries such as Irene Thomas, and the current Brain of Britain and Brain of Mensa champions.

Coming back to 1982, the decision was made to shift Mastermind from the Autumn to the Spring schedules, which meant that the next series wouldn’t air until 1983. So the Champion of Champions mini-series was born. Five champions played in the first heat, and five more in the second. The two highest scoring champs from both of the two heats contested the final. That made sense, and the winner was. . . well, despite the huge support for Fred it was actually the 1977 champ, Sir David Hunt, who took the title. Incidentally, the only champ to have played in all three champions’ tournaments to date was Patricia Owen, and I did chat with her about this when we shared a heat in the 2010 champ of champs series.

So to 1983, and our second champion from outside the traditional Mastermind winning professions, Christopher Hughes. At the time, Chris was a London Underground train driver. I remember Chris had appeared a year or two earlier on a one-off ITV series called Top of The World, an ITV attempt at a big budget, big prize serious quiz show, fronted by Eamonn Andrews. Chris won a couple of shows but didn’t win the series. My opinion was that he was miles better by the time he was on Mastermind. I wouldn’t say that his subsequent celebrity status quite matched the heights of Fredmania a couple of years earlier, but in the long run it’s Chris who went on to become one of TV’s Eggheads, since which he also added the Brain of Britain title to his CV.

In 1984 another teacher, Margaret Harris, won, setting a massive record score of 38, while in 1985 another driver, ambulance driver Ian Meadows, won. Margaret Harris’ record only lasted for 2 years, because librarian Jennifer Keaveney twice scored 40 in the 1986 series. One of these two scores was achieved in the Grand Final.

It’s unthinkable that a contender could get close to 40 in the current incarnation of the show, but this is a relatively recent development, which we’ll discuss when we get to the current era. In the last 10 years, with rounds being different lengths in heats, semis and finals, sometimes even differing from one season to another, it’s very difficult to compare performances between the current era, and the Magnus era. One could even be wary of comparing seasons in the Magnus era with each other . In his book, Magnus admits that there were some seasons where the average scores were considerably lower than the previous or following ones, without any ostensible reason.

One thing we can say about the 1988 and 1989 winners, House of Lords clerk David Beamish and vet Mary-Elizabeth Raw, respectively, is that neither of them incurred any passes for the whole series. Before them, though, was the 1987 champion, Dr. Jeremy Bradbrooke. I met Jeremy at the Champion of Champions recordings in 2010, and he spoke with great affection about his time on Mastermind. One other notable thing about his series was that it saw the first appearance of Kevin Ashman, although he was defeated in the semi-final. He would be back once the one series only rule was scrapped in 1995.

I want to talk about that rule for a moment. Prior to 1995, contenders were only allowed to appear in one series of Mastermind. If they didn’t win – and most of them didn’t, let’s face it – then it was a case of sorry, but you don’t get to go again. In 1980 a lady called Sheila Denyer appeared in Fred’s series. Remember that. In Ian Meadows’ 1985 series, a lady called Sheila Altree appeared in the first round and won her heat. After the heat was aired, a former contender rang the show and asked, since a contender from a previous series was having another go, could she as well? The production team checked the tapes, and also the two application forms from 1980 and 1985, and there was no doubt, Sheila Denyer had divorced and remarried, and was now Sheila Altree. Sadly, Sheila was disqualified and her place in the semi went to the runner up in her heat, Ian McKillop, who won and went through to the final. After the rule was scrapped, Sheila was invited to reapply, and she played in the 1997 series. I believe she also played in the 2003 series, the first season of the BBC TV revival. I know for a fact that she reached the semi final in 2007, because it was my semi-final.

There are some extremely good quizzers and quiz people, whose opinions I always take note of and respect, who feel that you should only ever be allowed one attempt. I feel the opposite – not surprisingly considering that I bombed out in the first round in 2006, before doing a bit better the next season.

I’d like to say a little bit more about the 1989 champion, the late Mary Elizabeth Raw. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but won the series despite the debilitating effects of her illness. Mary-Elizabeth wrote about her experience on the show in her book, “. . . And No Passes”, and a very entertaining and informative read it is too.