Mastermind 2024 Heat 20

Here we are at heat 20, dearly beloved. By my reckoning there’s just 11 shows to go.

Our first specialist subject last night was famous traitor Kim Philby. I once read that when Philby joined MI6 he felt that the whole place was so disorganised that it must be only a front, and that he was taking part in some bizarre initiation. Well, that didn’t feature in any of the questions. Rachel Fullard, our first contender was equal to the vast majority of the questions that were asked and she posted a good 9 points to lay down the gauntlet at the feet of the other three contenders. I took 2.

One of the younger of this year’s contender pool, student Edison Hipkin was answering on Chess: the Musical. A fair proportion of the questions on this round weren’t about the musical show itself so much as the original concept album. Thankfully, Edison was quite prepared for this. It was an impressive performance and I was delighted for him that he got a double figure score which as we know is a real mark of quality for a specialist round in the current format of the show. I guessed Stockholm for one of the answers which brought me my single point.

Mark Davies, our third contender, was answering on the Castles of North Wales. I had to feel for Mark. Somehow it all seemed to go wrong for him after the first couple of questions, and I take my hat off to him for rescuing the situation towards the end of the round. Mark finished with 5. By no means a disaster, but a score which left him with a veritable Snowdon to climb in the GK round. I added 2 to my aggregate.

We finished then with Julie Ashcroft, answering on The Life of Thomas Hardy. Julie didn’t seem to be answering particularly quickly but she just kept answering correctly and the score built accordingly. One question elicited a pass, but other than that she went on to produce a very fine round indeed. 12 points and 1 pass gave just a little daylight between herself and the peloton going into the GK round. As for me, well my knowledge of Hardy’s oeuvre proved enough to give me 5 points and take me to a double figure score of 10.

Mark was first to return to the chair for the gk round and what followed was a rather different kettle of fish from his first round. Although not answering quite at express pace Mark racked up an impressive twelve. I don’t know if he will decide to chance his arm in Mastermind again, but GK like that allied to a more lucrative specialist round could see him do well. He set the bar at 17.

Being realistic, Mark was always too far behind at the halfway stage to win. However three points separated the top 3, which meant that any of them could do it with the right performance on GK. First to try was Rachel Fullard. She didn’t match Mark’s even dozen, but she managed double figures with a 10 which raised the target to 19. A winning score? Well, it was not impossible, certainly.

I always worry with the youngest contenders that they may find the GK rounds a bit of an ordeal. It didn’t look as if Edison was under any distress, however there were just too many questions where I think his relative youth played against him. He achieved a perfectly respectable 8, but this still left him a point behind Rachel.

So finally this brought us back to Julie. 7 and 1 pass would force a tie break and anything higher would bring an outright win. In response to this target Julie produced by far the best GK round we’ve seen for quite a few weeks. She scored 14 and no passes, to leave the rest of the field trailing in her wake for an excellent 26 points. In her piece to camera Julie sounded very surprised at what had happened. Well, if that GK round was not just a flash in the pan, Julie, you have the ability to go further. I wish you the very best of luck in the semi finals.

The Details

Rachel Fullard	Kim Philby	9	1	10	1	19	2
Edison Hipkin	Chess: the Musical	10	2	8	3	18	5
Mark Davies	The Castles of North Wales	5	1	12	0	17	1
Julie Ashcroft	The Life of Thomas Hardy	12	1	14	0	26	1