It was Twenty Years Ago Today. . .

In my previous post, I mentioned the 2003 Channel Four Quiz Series Grand Slam. It’s 20 years ago that this show happened, and I thought it might be worth looking back on it now.

I remember the buzz about this show when it was being made. In 2003 I was a year or so away from making my own first appearance on a TV quiz show. Grand Slam was a quiz competition, contested between 16 players in knockout format. The big talking point at the time was that each of the contestants had to put up £1000 of their own money in order to take part. I’ll come back to this later.

I’ve googled the show because although I did watch some of them, it was a long time ago and I wanted to be certain of my facts. I remembered that it was a race against the clock. A similar idea has been used in segments of several shows before and since, but in case you’re not familiar, it works like this. Both contestants have a clock with 60 seconds on it in each round. When one is asked a question, the clock ticks down until he or she provides a correct answer. The clock stops, the opponent’s starts until he or she provides a correct answer, and so on. According to my sources the rounds were always:-

General Knowledge

Words and Language

Contemporary Knowledge

Numbers

The Final Combination – a miscellany of questions from the other round categories.

At the time the show went out the only contender I knew personally was Mark ‘the Beast’ Labbett. Mark was unfortunate enough to be drawn against eventual series winner Clive Spate in the first round. Clive was a multi-Countdown champion, as were some others among the 16. From the general knowledge quiz world, notable names were world quiz champion Olav Bjortomt, future Brain of Britain David Stainer, Discovery Mastermind champion Michael Penrice and BBC Mastermind champions David Edwards and Gavin Fuller. Clive defeated Gavin in the Final, to win the top prize of £50,000.

The idea of a tournament between champion quizzers is a pretty sound one to my mind, and it has been used occasionally since in shows like “Are You/Make Me An Egghead”. I did find that the format of Grand Slam meant that in practice the result of a great many of the shows became clear before the final round, which robbed the shows of much tension. I wasn’t quite convinced by Carol Vorderman as the host either.

Well, let’s come back to that USP, the £1000 entry fee. Now, I’ve no reason to say anything other than that this was kosher and above board and all of the 16 did have to pay a grand of their own money. Even at the time though I couldn’t help wondering whether this was brave or foolhardy. I mean, I’m still a pretty decent quizzer and I never enter a quiz where I don’t want to win. But I know for a fact that I cannot win every quiz I play in. Along with the vast majority of the population, there are a lot of people out there who are better quizzers than I am. That’s not even to mention the people who are no better than me, or worse, but who may have the lucky fall of the questions on a particular night. Can I see myself ever having paid £1000 to enter a quiz where my chances of winning would be slight at best? No. Can I see myself ever having paid £1000 to enter a quiz? Don’t be daft. So I can at least tip my metaphorical hat to the 16 for putting their money where the proverbial was.