Well, that was certainly more like it, wasn’t it.
Beth Goodliff kicked off the first round with The Novels of
Jeanette Winterson. I did explain in my preview that I have never read any of
these and sadly my memories of the TV adaptation of Oranges Are Not the Only
Fruit were too sketchy to bring me any points. Beth on the other hand managed
the coveted double figure round, so whatever happened in the rest of the show,
hers was not a wasted journey to the studio.
Lottie Verheijen was answering on the Films of Nicole
Kidman. I know more about the films of Nicole Kidman than I do about the novels
of Jeanette Winterson but I still didn’t know enough to earn any points on this
round. Lottie, though, managed our second double figures round of the night,
going one better than Beth and scoring 11. Again, she can be very pleased with
how she acquitted herself in the chair.
Were we perhaps on for a triple of double figures rounds?
It feels like a long time since that happened. Yet Alex Spacey looked a shoe in
to achieve this from very early doors in his round on the radio comedy series
Round The Horne. I stumbled my way to 4 points, but Alex blasted through to his
own 11 points. So far the whole show had been like a little oasis of quality in
what has so far been a rather uninspiring first round.
Finally civil servant Freddie Mitchell with a real
old-style Mastermind subject, the Paris Commune of 1871. Would he complete a
first round of all double figure scores for us? Well, no, not quite. Still, his
8 was not achieved without a very good knowledge of his subject, and by no
means suffered badly by comparison with what had gone before. I scraped two to
finish with an aggregate of 6.
Prospective contenders please take note. These performances
show you what you should all be aiming for in your specialist subjects. There
is no substitute for thorough preparation and if you prepare thoroughly for
your specialist round, this is what you can achieve.
Freddie Mitchell returned to the chair and, as if to make
amends for missing out on double figures in his specialist he put in a very
good GK performance to score 11. It is not very often that we see a contender who
is fourth at the turn around go on to win, but a performance like this
certainly put him in contention to do so.
Beth returned to the chair needing a double figure round of
her own for an outright lead. She too put in a good performance, keeping her
head , picking off what she knew and guessing what she didn’t. It didn’t quite
take her to double figures but it brought her 9, although Freddie retained the
lead on pass countback. So, two contenders were in the clubhouse and both could
feel very pleased with their performances all evening.
Lottie, sadly, did not do so well on her general knowledge.
She gave it her best shot and did manage to come up with answers to every
question, but was unable to find enough correct ones to challenge the lead. She
finished with a total of 16.
So only Alex Spacey remained. None of the other three
contenders had quite managed two double figure rounds. If Alex could to it then
he would win. If he could score 9 and no more than 2 passes he would win. Well,
I mentioned in my review of the previous heat that you can often tell someone
who has a quiz background from the way that they answer. Alex certainly gave
that vibe to me as he never looked in any doubt. He passed the target and had
enough time to add several more correct answers to take his overall score to 24.
13 in general knowledge is a total that has to be taken seriously in this
series. Very well done, Sir. You coulda been a contender and in fact, you very
much are.
As for Freddie and Beth, well, I hope that they take consolation
from the fact that the majority of this season’s heats have been won with
scores of 19 or less. A show with no fewer than 4 double figure rounds. Monsieur,
our ‘ost is spoiling us.
The Details
|
Beth Goodliff |
The Novels of
Jeanette Winterson |
10 |
1 |
9 |
4 |
19 |
5 |
|
Lottie Verheijen |
The Films of Nicole
Kidman |
11 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
|
Alex Spacey |
Round the Horne |
11 |
1 |
13 |
1 |
24 |
1 |
|
Freddie Mitchell |
The Paris Commune of
1871 |
8 |
1 |
11 |
2 |
19 |
3 |
No comments:
Post a Comment