Mastermind 2022: First Round - Heat 18

Good evening, dearly beloved. Let me tell you, after a day toiling away at the chalk face, Quizzy Monday is like balm to a troubled soul. Enough of my problems.

Let’s start with John Kiernan, then, shall we? Be fair, he was the first to go in this heat after all.  He was offering us the American photographer Lee Miller. I’m sorry to admit that I’m not really very familiar with her work, and so I was pretty pleased to scramble my way to a point on this set. John did well – he knew his stuff, but just didn’t quite manage to break into double figures.

When Lynn Roulstone had to pass on her first question, which required her to identify given lyrics as coming from “The Times They Are A’ Changing” I feared greatly for her round on the music of Bob Dylan. Now, okay, this was obviously a case of nerves, and I have no doubt that Lynn knew the answer. However it pretty much set the tone for the rest of the round, and I’m afraid it all went to suggest that Lynn didn’t know her subject as well as she maybe thought she did, or needed to. She scored 4.

Student Morgan Walmisley-Davies gave us our first double figures round of the night, answering questions on the history of the Green Party of England and Wales. I’ll be honest, I was surprised to manage a couple on this round. Morgan had no such problem, and as we’ve seen for most of this series, if you can score 10 or better you’re going to be in with a shout in the GK round.

Lucy Westall brought the round to a conclusion, with the only one of this week’s specialists in which I failed to trouble the scorer. Which shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise to me, I suppose, considering that I don’t think that I’ve ever watched any of Pedro Almodovar’s films. Lucy gave a pretty much textbook demonstration of what you aim to do with a specialist round – 13 questions asked, and 13 questions answered correctly. This gave Lucy a highly valuable 3 point lead going into the GK round. That’s not unbeatable but let me put it this way – you’d far rather be three points ahead at half time than three points behind.

Lynn Roulstone was first back to the chair. She started extremely well, and even though she slowed down in the second half of her round, the fact is that she managed a good GK score – all of which made her Specialist round all the more frustrating. If you can regularly score 12 on a round like this, as she did here, then you have the potential to win a heat. A case of what might have been.

John actually showed just how well Lynn had done in her own GK round as he laboured to beat her overall score by just one point. He too seemed to suffer from quiz fatigue as his round progressed – he scored the majority of his 8 points during the first half of the round. His score of 8 was perfectly respectable, but his total of 18 wasn’t going to win this heat.

You’d have made Lucy the favourite to win after her specialist round, but if Morgan could manage a barnstorming GK round and put Lucy into the corridor of doubt, then anything was possible. And to be fair, he certainly didn’t produce a bad round. But really and truly, if there’s a contender still to come after you, then you really want to set them a total which requires them having a double figure round, and this Morgan couldn’t do. He scored 9, which gave him 19.

So, Lucy needed 7 for an outright win, and it soon became pretty clear that she was going to achieve this and put a considerable amount of distance between herself and the chasing pack. Unlike the others there was no noticeable hiatus during her round, and in the end Lucy added 12 to her score, to finish with an impressive 25. There’s a couple of observations to make here. In her little piece to camera at the end of the show Lucy stressed that she isn’t a quizzer – well, Lucy, you answered like one, and 12 is a really good score for a non quizzer. It also underlines what I said about Lynn’s GK performance.

Congratulations, Lucy – a fine performance all round. Best of luck in the semis.

The Details

John Kiernan	Lee Miller	9	0	8	0	17	0
Lynn Roulstone	The Music of Bob Dylan	4	3	12	2	16	5
Morgan Walmisley-Davies	The History of the Green Party of England and Wales	10	0	9	2	19	2
Lucy Westall	The Films of Pedro Almodovar	13	0	12	0	25	0