Mastermind 2025 First round Heat 23

Funny old game, Mastermind, isn’t it? You wait weeks and weeks for an outstanding round and then two come along one after another. We haven’t seen a perfect round since Ivan Milatovic’s specialist right back at the start of February, and as for an outstanding GK performance – well, you have to go back to 2024. Enough preamble.

The first of last night’s contenders, Gary Crawford, was answering on my fill yer boots subject of the night, King Henry II. My boots were certainly not full by the end of the round, but I was pretty happy to have taken five of them. Gary himself took 6. Not a bad score, no, but he had started so well and then somehow the brakes came on. He took a long pause before getting one wrong and it robbed him of all momentum. The scores have been lower this series, but we have no see anyone win from his position.

Kate Bleazard gave us a good old traditional subject in the Miss Marple Novels of Agatha Christie. It’s a bit of a government health warning subject though, since even if you just stick to the novels there are 12 of them, and the setters expect you to know them in often minute detail. For the most part Kate was equal to the challenge. She scored 9 and looked to be worth every point of it. Me? Well, please bear in mind that I’ve never read any of the works of Agatha Christie, whom I believe is a relatively popular author, so zero was probably a fair result for me.

Nathan Hamer was offering an interesting subject in Wales Rugby Union test matches 2000 – present. In case you don’t follow the fifteen man oval ball game, Wales are currently having their worst run of results since young Webb-Ellis first picked up the ball and ran with it. At least the round served as a reminder that this is only a recent development and will surely be only temporary. I won’t support Wales against England or Scotland (for family reasons) but against everyone else – play ball. In the professional era teams play an awful lot of tests every year so I thought that Nathan did well to cover so much ground and get 7. I only had 2.

Finally Gary Austin. Gary was answering on the sitcom Friday Night Dinner. I don’t know why but I never developed the habit of watching it regularly so I failed to trouble the scorer. Now, like me, Gary is a retired teacher, so he was guaranteed support from the Clark sofa. The jury is out on whether this is more of a help or a hindrance. We’ve spoken before about the difficulties that rounds on long running TV shows bring, and indeed Gary seemed a little uncertain about a couple of questions. For all that though he managed a magnificent perfect round of 12.

Put yourself in Eddie Crawford’s position. Judging by his expression as he returned to his seat after his specialist he knew he had underperformed, a fact which Gary’s round had made all the more obvious. At 6 points off the lead he was destined to be a bit part player in the finale. So he told Destiny where to stick it and went and delivered one of the best GK rounds we’ve seen all series. Fifteen – count ‘em – fifteen correct answers. Almost every time he looked in doubt he dredged his memory to come up with the right answer. We have seen shows where a contender lying in fourth at half time has gone on to win, but not many, and not from so far back.

Nathan Hamer was going to have to go like the clappers to give himself a chance. Fair play, there were several times during his round when I thought to myself – he’s a quizzer. But the fact was that he was falling a little behind the clock. In the end he scored 11 – that’s pretty good in a GK round. But it wasn’t enough. He finished with a good 18.

Another contender finishing with a good GK score was Kate. 12 and no passes would bring her level with Eddie. She got into double figures with 10, to give her 19. This would have been enough to win most of the shows we’ve seen since Christmas, but this, sadly, wasn’t one of them. It’s gutting not to win, but at least it’s something to be able to say that you managed a good performance. Kate can certainly make that claim.

Gary faced an interesting challenge. Anything less than a double figure round might not be enough. 9 and no passes would only bring a tie break. And traversing the long corridor of doubt did seem to be playing on him as he round progressed. As it was, though, he gritted his teeth, toughed it out, and found the 10 points he needed to get over the line.

Now, that was a great show. Do I feel for Eddie? Of course. To manage such a great GK round and still fall short is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But then, and I know that this will sound harsh, Mastermind is a show of two rounds. You have to prepare, prepare, prepare for all eventualities in the specialist. The more you prepare, the luckier you will get. So congratulations to Gary. In his insert he said that he felt that he needed the points cushion on specialist because he felt others would be better on GK. Well, whether that’s hindsight or not, it doesn’t matter. Well played sir. Best of luck in the semis.

Eddie Crawford	Henry II	6	0	15	0	21	0
Kate Bleazard	The Miss Marple Novels of Agatha Christie	9	0	10	0	19	0
Nathan Hamer	Wales Rugby union test matches 2000 - Present	7	0	11	1	18	1
Gary Austin	Friday Night Dinner	12	0	10	3	22	3