You know, since reviving the blog in August I have felt a little guilty that I didn’t review the 2021 Grand Final of Mastermind. Apart from anything else, I like to recognise what must be one of the high points and most memorable achievements in any quizzer’s quiz career – contending in a Grand Final. LAM reader Carly, in a comment to a post from 18th December asked about the possibility of writing a review of the final. Well, it’s maybe a bit late for a real review – but if we call it a retrospective, then maybe I can get away with it.
So, in order to write this post I did watch the final again.
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember much of the series and the semis leading up to
the final, other than thinking that Frankie Fanko had a very good chance of
adding the Mastermind Bowl to the OC trophy. Mind you, after having a good
performance to win his heat, Jonathan had achieved the feat of answering every
single question correctly in his semi-final, and if that’s not a declaration of
intent I don’t know what is.
Dan Afhsar started us off. His filmed insert gave us a pretty
good idea what a covid-era filmed insert was going to look like. Yes, he did
have an away day, but this was to Dulwich College to see the James Caird
lifeboat, rather than to the island of South Georgia or some other redolent
location. We also learned of his interest in running and saw that families of
the contenders were also going to make important contributions to the films. As
regards the round, Dan put in a fine performance to score 10. As you might
expect, none of the contenders passed on their specialist rounds at all.
In Claire Barrow’s film she gave us cycling as opposed to
running. Claire interestingly revealed that she’s been on a number of quiz
shows, and revealed that one of her motivations for Mastermind was to expunge
the memory of a second round exit in the early days of The Weakest Link – which
incidentally made it’s return to the Beeb last Saturday. Personally I don’t
like it when they seem to have asked the contenders how much they want to win,
and what it would mean to them. I mean, you can take it for granted that it
means a massive amount, and each of them are going to be doing their very best
to win. It goes without saying, so there’s no need to say it. When I was asked
the question ‘How do you rate your chances of winning?’ for my own filmed
insert in the 2008 SOBM I stonewalled it with the answer ‘1 in 6 – same as
everyone else. If the questions go my way I’ll do well, and if they don’t then
I won’t.’ I think they edited that out of the final cut. Coming back to Claire,
she’d obviously worked like stink on Cole Porter, but sadly a couple of points
just got away from her. Three points behind is not an insurmountable gap, but bridging
it is a lot to ask.
Frankie’s spotlit hobby of choice was singing in a choir.
Various members of the family were featured in the insert, including husband
Andrew – fellow winning team member in OC, and a contender in his own right in
the current series. Frankie talked of her love of quizzes and general
knowledge, and to be fair this shone through, and is something I can really get
on board with. As was her specialist subject, the Vienna Secession. I spent a
few days in Vienna in the October half term of 2019, and particularly enjoyed a
visit to the Belvedere Museum, where I learned a little bit about the movement.
Frankie knew more than a little bit. 9 put her just one point behind Dan.
Harry Heath’s film also focused on his family, at the family
farm. Now, I may be wrong, but I think that Harry would also have beaten Gavin’s
record as youngest champion if he had won, yet I don’t recall this being
mentioned on his film. Maybe it was covered and then edited out after the final
itself had been filmed. The new element introduced in this insert was the personal
letter of congratulations and encouragement from Jimmy Carter himself – that’s
a former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, mind you. Impressive. Harry’s
round on the man himself was pretty impressive too. As had Frankie before him,
Harry managed 9 and no passes, and again was sitting just one point off the
lead.
Jonathan Gibson’s insert was value for money too. Firstly we
had some rather lovely scenery from the beautiful east coast of Scotland. We
had contributions from Jonathan’s sister, and another nice location in the
shape of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. We had the message of
encouragement, this time from Gavin Fuller – 1993 Champion and Champion of
Champions Grand Finalist, and the man whose record of being the youngest
champion stood to be broken. Finally, we had Jonathan himself singing one of
Flanders’ and Swann’s on stage – rather pleasantly, if truth be told. Well,
after all of this it would have been easy for the round to be an anticlimax,
but it wasn’t. After the way the previous contenders had performed, nobody was
going to blow everyone away in the first round in this final, but Jonathan’s
exceptional preparation put daylight between himself and the pack, as he scored
11.
Hazel Humphrey’s film appropriately took place in a lovingly
renovated Curzon Cinema. Support from family came in the shape of partner Paul,
and Hazel spoke of her Mastermind career, and her progress through appearances in
previous years, to the stage when she’s made the final. And let’s all raise a
glass to that, gentle readers. Because to make a Mastermind Grand Final IS
something special. With 6 players contending each final, obviously 5 of them
are going to go away disappointed, but think about the achievement for a
moment. According to the always excellent Weaver’s Week, less than 300 people
have ever made it to a Mastermind Final. To put it bluntly – duffers don’t get
to the final. Capping off Hazel’s film, the film within a film she was watching
in the cinema was a message from none other than film maker David Cronenberg,
the subject of her specialist round. Sadly, the round itself did expose a
couple of gaps in Hazel’s knowledge. Her 6 was by no means a bad performance,
but it wasn’t a winning one.
To the general knowledge round, then. Hazel returned to the
chair and put in a good round of 11 and 2 passes, to set the bar at 17. There
was a wry smile, as I think she knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. Claire
Barrow did something very similar, well, in terms of her score it only differed
in passes, 11 more points and no passes. This was enough to take the target to beat
to 18.
Frankie answered like a TV quiz veteran in her GK round in
the way that she answered very quickly, giving just surnames where possible,
without dwelling on wrong answers. A few of the questions just didn’t fall her
way. She too scored 11 points and no passes, but her superior specialist round
gave her the lead with 20.
Frankie was guaranteed a place on the podium when Harry fell
just a bit short on his round. In fact his round illustrated just why Gavin’s
record had lasted as long as it did. There seems to be nothing that Harry lacks
as a quizzer, short of a few more years at the quizface, picking up that vast treasury of quiz knowledge that comes
with it.
So to the top two. Dan was just one place and one point off
the top of the leaderboard at half time, and the question was whether he could
put in a round which might win him the title. And the answer was, well, frankly,
yes. Dan put in a really good GK round to score 14 and take the score to beat
up to 24. This was easily the best GK round of the night.
Of course, we all know now that by that I mean the best GK
round of the night. . . so far. Because
Jonathan was going to deliver another absolute belter of a round. Yes, he
missed. . . what, 1? 2? My goodness, though, the things that he either knew, or
knew enough to guess! To have that kind of GK at that young age is, well,
remarkable.
My commiserations to the other contenders, especially to Dan,
who I recall as having his finest performance in the final. To Jonathan, my
belated congratulations, and apologies that I didn’t post about it at the time.
The Details
|
Dan Afshar |
Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition 1914 - 1917 |
10 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
|
Claire Barrow |
Cole Porter |
7 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Frankie Fanko |
The Vienna Secession 1897 to 1905 |
9 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Harry Heath |
Jimmy Carter |
9 |
0 |
9 |
1 |
18 |
1 |
|
Jonathan Gibson |
Flanders and Swann |
11 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
28 |
0 |
|
Hazel Humphreys |
The Films of David Cronenberg |
6 |
0 |
11 |
2 |
17 |
2 |
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