Mastermind 2024 First Round Heat 16

Hello, good afternoon and welcome. One of the things I’m going to check when I have the time and inclination is whether the average score for this series is lower than it was for last year’s. My impression is that it maybe is- but impressions are not always correct. So I may well have a go when I can.

I’m not trying to cast aspersions on any individual player, but merely wondering if we are witnessing a trend. If there is a trend for lower scores, then we can consider the reasons later on.

So let’s get to the 4 individuals who contested last night’s match, beginning with Elliott Hooson. Elliot was answering on the artist Bridget Riley. I’m a little ashamed that I didn’t manage to get any points on this round, bearing in mind that she is a fellow Goldsmith’s College, University of London alumnus, albeit she was there three decades before I was. Elliott had prepared thoroughly, and as we’ve seen in this series, 9 has become a good score, and so he would be in with a chance in the GK round.

When I was previewing this heat I did mention that the fact that Thomas Wetherill’s specialist round on the Winter Olympics only covered those in the 21^st century, then he was likely to get questions really probing for in depth knowledge. Me, I was delighted to get the easy one he was asked about GB’s success in the skeleton bob in successive games. Again, I can’t sugar coat this – sadly Thomas scored 4 on what I felt was a very tricky round.

The sitcoms of Peter Kaye was my ‘banker’ round for the show. Not as much as it was Faye Tryhorn’s though. She didn’t miss much at all, and managed to get into double figures. I was interested that the round asked several questions about From the Cradle to the Grave, based on Danny Baker’s first volume of autobiography, where the great man really shone as Danny’s dad, Spud. Typically I didn’t get any of those ones right, but managed 3 on some of the other sitcoms.

Now, as much as Thomas’ winter Olympics round called for very specialist knowledge, Liz Davison’s round on St. Albans was the kind of round that a decent general knowledge would gift you the answers to some of the questions. 4 to be precise, and none of those referenced my naughty 4x great uncle Jabez Rainbow either.

Well, we’ve already seen this series how what looks like a two horse race at half time can be won by a backmarker with exceptional general knowledge, so I was making no pronouncement’s on the most likely winner this time. First back to the chair was Thomas. When someone has a score that they are probably disappointed with in specialist it’s always interesting to see how they manage to rally themselves for GK. In Thomas’ case the answer was – very well indeed, thank you. When Clive announced that his score was 14 he looked disappointed. I get it, but he’d had to produce a good, competitive GK round to get there and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Liz Davison did even better with her GK round. She wasn’t snapping the answers out, but her measured responses built the total until she finished the round with a good 11. The target she had set was 17. Normally you wouldn’t have thought that this was going to be quite enough to take the win, but we’ve seen some funny things happening in the last few weeks, so all bets were off.

Until, that is, Elliott Hooson passed Liz’s 17 with a couple of questions remaining. Like Thomas, Elliott scored double figures. His 10 raised the target to 19 points. We’d seen three consecutive double figure rounds on GK. If Faye Tryhorn also got double figures, she would win. If she scored 9 she already had too many passes, so she would not. So bearing that in mind I think that her tactic of passing quickly on things she didn’t have a clue about was probably sensible. Unfortunately though there were just too many questions she couldn’t answer. By the time we got to the last 20 seconds or so it was pretty clear she was going to fall short. Not bby much – she scored 8 to take her total to 18, just one point behind Elliott. But that was enough of a gap, and a surprised Elliott, if his piece to camera at the end was anything to go by, took the win. Best of luck to you in the semi-final, sir.

The Details

Elliott Hooson	Bridget Riley	9	0	10	1	19	1
Thomas Wetherill	Winter Olympics 2002 - 2022	4	2	10	3	14	5
Faye Tryhorn	The Sitcoms of Peter Kaye	10	1	8	5	18	6
Liz Davison	The History of St. Albans	6	1	11	3	17	4