Monday 30 December 2013

Sleb Mastermind - Show Three

Good morning, I’ve been expecting you. Now, pay attention, because we have a lot to get through. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to catch up on what happened in last night’s Sleb Mastermind, and Brain of Britain for that matter. More of that later. For now, let’s kick off with James Allen’s round on Roald Dahl. Mr. Allen is a commentator on Formula One motor racing. I’ll be honest, I haven’t followed it much over the last couple of years, but I do add myself to the list of all of those hoping that Michael Schumacher will make a full and speedy recovery. James was clearly up for it, and although John made a big show out of being ‘generous’, allowing the New York Philharmonic where the New York Symphony was the answer, he did well to get 9 points.

David Bradley is probably best known for playing Argus Filtch in the Harry Potter movies, but let’s be honest, you’ll have seen this ubiquitous character actor in many things. He was superb as William Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time recently, for example. He wasn’t bad on his specialist round on Max Wall either. I couldn’t match his 11, although I was pleased with my 6. They didn’t ask the title of Wall’s autobiography, though, which I thought was a dead cert to come out. It’s called “The Fool on the Hill” , just out of interest. Oh, and his character in “Crossroads” was Uncle Wally, if I remember correctly.

Chris Ramsey was answering on TV’s The Sopranos. That’s one of the growing list of shows about which I’ve heard a lot, but never actually watched. Which means that my two points were really not bad going at all. Chris on the other hand gave it a decent old go, and ended up with 8, which seems to be pretty much the mark of a decent sleb specialist round this term.

Then to Shobu Kapoor. I’ll be honest and admit that I haven’t seen “Citizen Khan”, her current show, but I do remember her as Gita in Eastenders, back in the days when I used to watch that thrice weekly gloomfest. Now I suppose she was tempting fate by taking a single book – Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, and frankly, she wasn’t great. We’ll say a little more about that shortly.

So far we’ve seen one great sleb GK round, and one good one, both of which were in the first show. Shobu Kapoor was never going to provide another one. I’m not going to go on and on about this, but her particular form of brain freeze seemed to mean that she just couldn’t understand the simplest questions. Well, that’s what she said, several times as I recall. In the end John resorted to repeating the questions and she rallied enough to just creep into double figures for the whole show. Never mind, thanks for playing anyway. As it happened, 5 points was as much as Chris Ramsey managed for his own GK round. He started with a couple of correct answers, but then soon switched to flippant silly answers mode when there were a few he couldn’t get. The best of these – name the wife or Earl Leofric who rode naked through the streets of Coventry – answer – Dame Judi Dench – may well be the funniest of this series, although it’s not as good as Rick Wakeman’s – don’t tell him, Pike – of a few years ago. He finished with 13.

James Allen then needed 5 to take the lead. Well, he managed that with quite a bit to spare. His 14 was, at least, the second good GK round we’ve seen this series, although not in the same league as Mark Watson’s round in the first show. The upshot was that David Bradley needed 13 in order to win. Now, lovers of Harry Potter will know that the character that David Bradley plays in the film series, Argus Filtch, is a Squib. That means a member of the magic community who can’t actually perform magic. I found myself irresistibly drawn to remark that David is something of a squib when it comes to GK, I’m afraid. That’s unkind. At least his 6 points meant that he had the second best GK round of the night, and he finished a clear second overall. The show, though, was James’. Well played

The Details

James Allen Clic Sargent Life and Novels of Roald Dahl9 - 114 - 123 - 2
David BradleyThe Shakespeare HospiceThe Life and Career of Max Wall11 - 06 - 117 - 1
Chris RamseyCrossroads Care GatesheadThe Sopranos8 - 15 - 313 - 4
Shobu KapoorMigrant VoiceJack Kerouac – On The Road5 - 45 - 610 - 10

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