Mastermind 2026 Heat 3

Well, after last week’s pyrotechnics the odds did seem to favour a rather more bread and butter edition last night which is pretty much what we got.

First up was vicar Elis Mathews. The last time a vicar won a series was as long ago as 1996 when the series was won by the Reverend Richard Sturch, a very nice, quietly spoken gentleman whom I had the pleasure to meet at the Champion of Champions mini-season in 2010. I’m sure Elis Matthews is just as nice, although I don’t believe that we have ever met. Elis was answering on my least favourite of last night’s subjects, Piero della Francesca so being able to guess the answers to two of his questions put me in a good mood from the start. Elis scored 11 and looked extremely secure under the garryowen (look it up). Good start.

By way of contrast Eulalie Burrows was answering on my ‘banker’ subject – Doctor Who: The Jodie Whitaker Years. Answering very well too, scoring 11 and no passes. Me? I scored five. Well, as I explained in my preview post, this really wasn’t my favourite era of the show. I noticed that the questions were almost entirely about plot points and details from within the individual episodes. It’s a shame considering what you could have asked about production details, but there you are.

You have to feel for Ellen Salkeld. For one thing, the King she picked to answer on , Edward III was one of those stubborn old devils who persistently went on kinging for over fifty years, way past his usefulness if truth be told. For another, she’d had to watch the two previous contenders deliver excellent rounds. For a third thing, she was not going badly at all until she was stopped by a question that she seemed to know that she knew, but whose answer refused to leap from the tip of her tongue. This plunged her into a pass spiral from which she never really recovered. Five? Well, it’s not a disaster by any means. But Ellen looked very crestfallen as she sat back in her chair.

It was left to Kumaran Sivathillainathan to finish the first half with his round on Short Stories of Roald Dahl. As I predicted, memories of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected from years ago brought me a couple of points. This meant I’d scored on each round, and ended with a pleasing aggregate of 12. Which is not that impressive considering that Kumaran too managed 11 from just his own round. Like Elis and Eulalie he also managed to avoid passing as well.

Little remained for Ellen Salkeld as she returned to the chair, save producing the best GK round that she could. I think that this is just what she did. In these days 8 is perfectly respectable. As regards the specialist round, well, she’s not the first person to be momentarily undone by the chair and I’ve no doubt that she won’t be the last. Well done for recovering in the GK.

So to the first entrant in our three-horse race. The best advice I can give anyone sitting down in the chair to start their GK round is to clear your head, trust the answers that pop into your head and concentrate on them one question at a time. Once a question’s gone, whether you got it or not, let it go. Concentrate on the next. This was pretty much what Elis did. So although he didn’t produce a double figure score, I’d say he pretty much wrung all that he could out of the round to set a competitive target of 20.

Too competitive for Eulalie, I’m afraid. She gave it her best shot, but, unlike during her specialist round she never looked comfortable in the chair and never managed to get enough momentum to power her towards the target. She scored 7 for 18.

Which just left Kumaran Sivathillainathan. This was a very interesting round. With 18 scored and over half a dozen questions left to go you’d have thought he was going to do it. I did. Yet those pesky questions just wouldn’t fall for him. He managed one more to put him on the brink of at least earning a tie break, but it just wasn’t enough. He scored a respectable 8 but ended a point short with 19.

Yes, I know some will point to the fact that we did not have any double figure GK rounds in his show and then point out that last week’s runner up, Dennis Wang scored 25, five more points than this week’s winner. Well, Dennis isn’t necessarily out of it yet. But that’s tournament play. That’s Mastermind. So many congratulations Elis, and best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Elis Matthews	Piero Della Francesca	11	0	9	0	20	0
Eulalie Burrows	Doctor Who: The Jodie Whitaker Years	11	0	7	3	18	3
Ellen Salkeld	Edward III	5	4	8	0	13	4
Kumaran Sivathillainathan	The short stories of Roald Dahl	11	0	8	0	19	0