Thursday 1 January 2009

Sleb Mastermind 4 Weds 31st December

Sleb Mastermind 4 Wednesday 31st December

Well, at least the show has provided 3 people I've heard of tonight. Summer Strallen wasn't a name I was previously aware of, but research reveals that she's a West End musical leading lady who took over the role of Maria from Connie Fisher, and her aunt is Bonnie Langford. Now, lets get on with the review.

Sally Lindsay kicked off with The Carry On Films. This wasn't the most difficult set of questions that has ever been asked on Sleb MM, but you've got to say that there were a few difficult ones in there, and she managed to get almost all of them. A fine performance. Just out of interest, I wondered if they would have allowed such a non PC subject if it had been a male contender who'd asked to do it ?

Mick Hucknall took us a considerable way upmarket with the Life and Career of Henri Matisse. It must have been getting on for half a minute before he actually got one right, and for a while it looked as if he was going to challenge David Lammy's lowest specialist score of the series so far. He rallied, though, and pulled back to a respectable 9.

The afore-mentioned Ms.Strallen followed with Breeds of Dog. I enjoyed this round because a lot of the questions were standard pub quiz questions - what doesn't a basenji do ? - the Dandie Dinmont is named after a character in a book by which scottish author ? - name the Skye Terrier who kept guard over his master's grave for 14 years - you get the point. 11 was quite a good score for this round, but not a good enough score to put her into contention really.

Mel Smith. I hope that there is nothing seriously wrong with Mel Smith , one of my 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' heroes, but he sounded terrible. If he's been ill recently, or suffered from a condition which is common knowledge and I've just missed it, then I apologise. Still he handled a tricky round with aplomb. Shakespeare wrote a lot of comedies and the questions that were asked about them weren't all gimmes by any stretch of the imagination. 16 and 0 passes certainly put him into contention.

Well, in shows 2 and 3 the leader at the halfway stage went on to win. Yes I know that both Philippa Gregory and Jon Culshaw scored 16 in their first rounds of their show, but Philippa Gregory had fewer passes. However we also had Dave Myers overturn a 5 point lead to win on passes in show 1. So it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Sally Lindsay would win, especially if any of the other three could really put on a show in the GK round. Mick Hucknall didn't, managing 7. This was matched by Summer Strallen, whose 7 took the target to beat up to 18. Mel Smith started well on the General knowledge round, but then something seemed to happen, and he lost all oomph or concentration. It just seemed too much for him in this condition, and he struggled to 6 for 22. Sally Lindsay played the best general knowledge round of the show. She had the sense to answer what she did know, guess what she thought she could guess, and pass what she didn't. Her 10, which gave her 27, was actually only the 4th GK round of this series to get into double figures, and puts her second overall for this series with one show to go. For the record there were 17 passes in total on this show - exactly half the amount on yesterday's show.

The Details

Sally Lindsay The Carry On Films17 - 0 /10 - 3 /27 - 3
Mick HucknallHenri Matisse 9 - 4 /7 - 5 /16 - 9
Summer StrallenDog Breeds11 - 2 /7 - 1 / 18 - 3
Mel SmithThe Comedies of Shakespeare 16 - 0 /6 - 4 / 22 - 4

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