Sleb Mastermind Show 5

Show 5, then. First up was Adil Ray. Now, I can’t say that I was that familiar with his work before the start of the show. John made several comments to the effect of him being a broadcasting jack-of-all-trades, and he’s certainly been a busy boy, what with radio music shows, radio cricket commentary, and appearing with fellow sleb MM contender Shobu Kapoor in Citizen Khan. That wasn’t necessarily a great omen, but he was taking a good old MM staple as his subject, in the shape of Fawtly Towers. Always a useful choice that since there are only 12 episodes you have to learn. Under those circumstances his 6 points looked a little modest, but the subject got my evening off to a good start with 9.

Dr. Mark Porter was equally unknown to me. After wikiing him I found out the is a medical correspondent for the Times, presents radio shows, and is seen from time to time on The One Show. Fair enough. His specialist subject was my least favourite, the History of the Porsche 911. My only correct answer was that Peugeot monopolise the model numbers with a 0 in the middle of 3 digits. Mark’s 9 was a good round, and at least put him in a position where a good GK would put him in with a real shout. Mind you, those have been a rare commodity in this series so far.

Now, I think it was in my last review that I expounded my theory that taken as a whole, comedians tend to punch above their weight in Sleb MM. So I expected quite a bit from Kevin Eldon. That name might not mean a lot to you, but you’ll probably have seen him in several things, not least of which are Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge, and I’m Alan Partridge. That was enough to earn him support from the Clark sofa, but in addition to this his specialist subject was the Music of The Beatles. Both of us managed 11 points and no passes. Good round.

Rather surprisingly I did recognize Jordan Stephens of Rizzle Kicks, although if you asked me to name any of their singles or albums I couldn’t. His subject was The Life and Times of Ross Geller. Now that’s smart. We’ve seen people answering on Friends before, but on just one character – now that is using your head. Jordan managed 9, a good score, and I managed 10, which took me through the 30 points barrier for my specialist aggregate, and I’ve never done that before.

Adil returned to the chair for GK, intent on enjoying himself. There was some nonsense with John about throat clearing, which I didn’t really get. Finally the round began. To be fair, Adil did a little better on his GK than he had with his specialist, adding 8 to his total, but as John funnily and rather cruellly said, he was never going to win anyway. Dr. Mark started brightly enough, but ran out of steam and momentum before the end. He managed 9, which is fine, but his total of 18 was never going to be a winning one.

Jordan spoke interestingly about the way Rizzle Kicks gained huge success through posting homemade videos to a well-known social media website. He started brightly enough, but fell prey to the pitfall of dwelling too much on answers that stubbornly refused to come past the tip of his tongue. In the end he managed 7 to take his total to 16, enough for second at this stage, but with Kevin to come, probably only good enough for third.

Kevin spoke about his meeting with Sir Paul McCartney, when the great man said to him “Hi Kev”. I had a similar experience once with one of my great heroes, Daley Thompson. I was working in Novotel in Hammersmith, and the great man got out of a taxi. In a split second I considered all the things I could tell him, about how I’d followed his career, and how much his indomitable will to win had delighted and inspired me. In the end I tried to encapsulate it in the phrase, “Can I carry your bag, Mr. Thompson?“ I'd like to think he understood the sentiment behind the words. He replied, “Nah, that’s alright mate.” What a man. Back to last night’s show. Kevin gave us our only double figures GK round of the night to win comfortably with 23.

The Details

Adil Ray	Myeloma UK	Fawlty Towers	6 - 1	8 - 4	14 - 5
Dr. Mark Porter	Meningitis Now	History of the Porsche 911	9 - 0	9 - 2	18 - 2
Kevin Eldon	North London Action for the Homeless	The Music of the Beatles	11 - 0	12 - 2	23 - 2
Jordan Stephens	Audioactive	Life and Times of Ross Geller	9 - 1	7 - 3	16 - 4