Quizness

I finally watched my first edition of “Quizness” last night, having recorded the celebrity edition from the night before. Granted, this was a celebrity edition, and I will take this into consideration in this review, but I think it was certainly enough to give me a flavour of the show.

The idea behind the quiz is that it’s not a general knowledge quiz. Or rather, that it IS a general knowledge quiz, but it’s more than a general knowledge quiz, as it is also a test of mental agility. This became obvious from the first round onwards.

I don’t know if they play different rounds in different shows a la ‘House of Games’ – and yes, I shall be returning to this particular comparison –but I think that the rounds stay the same in the same order each show. On the show I watched the slebs started off with a game called Subbly Jubbly. This was a seemingly straightforward buzzer round with a twist. 3 letters were selected by the computer, and assigned a word which began with each – for example – sickie for s, picky for p and tricky for t. Any word beginning with any of these letters would have to be replaced by the appropriate word, so for example – if the question was ‘Which Western film was based on the Japanese film “The Seven Samurai”’ the answer would be ‘The Magnificent Sickie”. You get the point. The round was replayed as round five, Doubly Jubbly, with three different words, and double points for some of the answers. It was also replayed as the final round, but we’ll come to that in a while.

Round 2 was called Brain Chain. A straightforward round of GK, but with the twist that the contestant had to say the answers to all the previous questions – so you might get a chain like –‘ Adverts – according to an old TV advert, which deodorant ‘won’t let you down’?’ – SURE – which is the 18^th letter of the alphabet – SURE R – She sells seashells on the sea what? – SURE – R – SHORE – On a football pools coupon what could be score or no score? -SURE R SHORE DRAWERS (show us your drawers). Yes, there’s a vein of schoolboy humour which runs throughout the show like the words running through a little stick of Blackpool rock.

I will admit that I haven’t seen a round like the third, Risky Quizness, before. Again, it’s like a straight buzzer round, but there’s a twist. Most of the answers are the same. But some of them aren’t. So for example, the first four answers might all be ‘love’, and then the fifth ‘hate’.

The last round before the first elimination was called Double Trouble. Here some real mental agility was called for. Now, what happens here is a little complicated to explain. The contestants see three questions. Above each one is an answer. The answers do not actually relate to the question. So let us say that the question is ‘Where was Donald Trump born?’. The contestants have to find the correct answer – in this case New York. Then they have to read the question below the answer – let us say it’s ‘In the Lord of the Rings, where does Sauron live?’. So, then the contestant has to buzz in and say that Donald Trump was born in the Land of Mordor. It’s after this round that the lowest scoring contestant is eliminated.

I’ve already explained that Doubly Jubbly is round five. Round six was Pundreds and Thousands. As the name suggests, this is a round of questions whose answers are rather groan inducing puns. For example ‘which circus performer exercises bleached hawsers?’ – answer – a Whiterope walker. Lowest scoring contestant after this round is eliminated.

The round which sorted out who would play for the cash was called Dental Mexterity. This is a round in which ordinary questions had to be answered in Spoonerisms – so for example ‘Which TV show was named after the flag shown by a ship which is ready to leave port?’ would have to be answered with ‘Poo Bleater’. You get the point. The celebrity with the most points went through to the final, and the other didn’t.

So, I did say that the final round is Super Subbly Jubbly. All six words from the previous jubbly rounds are in play, together with three more to make 9 in total. The winning sleb, then, had to answer 7 questions correctly, substituting words where necessary. They didn’t have to be consecutive correct answers, but when the time was up, that was it. Essentially it’s 8 quickfire rounds for your money, each of which has a significant mental agility challenge as well as a general knowledge challenge.

Even if you haven’t yet seen ‘Quizness’ for yourself, you might well, having read the above, be able to see why I drew the comparison with ‘House of Games’ earlier. There’s the inherent silliness of the twists in many of the rounds – that’s not a criticism, by the way. Yet a lot of what is being asked isn’t silly at all. The level of questions may not be of Mastermind or University Challenge level, but it’s solidly mid-level, and noticeably higher than on ‘Tipping Point’ for the sake of argument. The amount of mental agility required is not of the level of ‘Only Connect’ for example, but it certainly demands as much as ‘House of Games’.

Of course, ‘House of Games’ has a trump card in the shape of the host, the great Richard Osman. ‘Quizness’ has Tom Allen. Now, I first became aware of Tom Allen through ‘The Great British Bakeoff – An Extra Slice’ and I wasn’t impressed. However, I was a lot more impressed when he took over ‘The Apprentice – You’re Fired’. Maybe this is because the former is essentially a Jo Brand vehicle, and Tom is left with the scraps – making waspish comments to the audience about the bakes they’ve brought in, and a monologue of a couple of minutes. Whereas in the latter he’s in charge and can impose his own style on proceedings. I felt he did a good job on ‘Quizness’ too, where his delivery and style were a pretty good fit for the fast and furious nature of the rounds.

Granted, this was a celebrity version of the show which I’m sure served to highlight the similarities with ‘House of Games’. This meant that the contestants were all experienced and confident telly performers which made for exactly the kind of atmosphere you’d want in a show which is essentially an entertainment vehicle. Unlike ‘House of Games’ though the series which went out earlier in 2021 was for members of the public. I’d want to see how well this worked, and what sort of atmosphere was created in the majority of the shows.

Is it coming back in 2022? I don’t know. I rather hope so. There’s plenty of room in the schedules for this kind of show. If we think back to a previous BBC teatime favourite ‘Eggheads’ was the first real ‘pro-am’ quiz show and became very popular and successful with it. ‘The Chase’ also took the idea of quiz pros v. amateurs, and did something different with it, becoming extremely popular and successful in its own right in the process. ‘House of Games’ took a basic quiz format and turned the games into something different and very entertaining. I think ‘Quizness’ does the same in a different way. It’s a breath of fresh air, and I hope it gets a chance again.