It’s 36 years since Stephen Fry appeared on University Challenge as a grey-blazered, Lego-haired young brain in the 1980 Queens College team. How times have changed. Back then, TV quizzes were largely the preserve of beige-looking megabrains with a leather-bound encyclopedia and college scarf for a pillow.
Today, quizzes are as much a staple of pub life as crisps, coke and multicoloured carpets and, thanks to QI, Fry spent 13 years as the one asking the questions. From coin-operated quiz machines in suburban boozers to millionaire-making TV formats, the world of quizzing has seen a seismic shift since the squeaking black leather days of Magnus Magnusson on Mastermind. According to new BBC documentary How Quizzing Got Cool, this is in large part due to the successes of those brave men and women who set their synapses against the clock for our entertainment. So we decided to catch up with some of the masterful minds who brought quizzing in from the cold.
Shaun Wallace – the first black Mastermind winner, star of The Chase
I’d been trying to get on Mastermind ever since I was a little kid – I watched the first programme in September 1972. My specialist subject in the 1980s was going to be the TV show Minder but I was trying to train as a barrister at the time, which became more important. Procrastination is the thief of time and all that. I thought I’d missed my chance for ever when Mastermind was taken off air in 1997, so when they brought it back in 2003 I grabbed the opportunity.
Education has always been important to me: my motto is “no information is useless information”. I learned as a kid that William Lyons set up the Jaguar company in 1922 and then, all those years later, it was the penultimate question I answered on Mastermind. If you’re interested in something, you’ll never forget it and, one day, it might change your life.
I read the newspapers – different kinds of newspapers – every day, and I record all the quiz shows to test myself with the questions I get wrong. I absolutely don’t feel bad when I beat someone in a quiz (in fact, I like it when I win with one second to go). Being a barrister has taught me how not to be flustered, even if I get a question wrong. Being wrong is okay – you just have to focus on the next question. Nobody’s going to kill you for getting something wrong.
I don’t watch soaps, I’ve never watched the Simpsons, I’ve never seen EastEnders; unless it’s a number one single or album I can’t answer a question on pop music either. So, if I get asked that kind of thing, all I can do is make an educated guess.
The question I’m most proud to have got right (see below for answers): 1) Which American president was born Leslie King Jr?
The question I can’t believe I got wrong: 2) Which is the only country in Africa that begins with the letter K?
Judith Keppel – the first winner of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, star of Eggheads
When I went on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I decided not to do any revision, or learn anything new, in case it muddled my brain. I’ve since discovered that that’s not true – you do need to do some reading. [Judith became a millionaire by answering Which king was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine? Answer: Henry II].
I suppose I’ve always read a lot, and I’m lucky in that I have a good memory. Well, I had a good memory. Things stick for some unknown reason. But I can’t just learn lists. I have to have a book, something interesting, to hang information on.
My weak spot has always been sport. I had to force myself to be interested, which I did through the characters rather than just statistics. But you need to learn things like who won the Grand National or whatever.
I’d never been on television before Millionaire and I was really very frightened. But my reaction to fear, funnily enough, is to focus. It’s the power of adrenaline – I love adrenaline. And I love winning.
I never think of myself as a quizzer, to be honest. I was asked to do Eggheads because I was the first person to win Millionaire, but I’m an amateur really. I got a very easy question wrong on Eggheads once that I’ve been teased about ever since: I was given the lyric “Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today…” and guessed the song as Barcelona by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Cabballe [it’s New York, New York]. We call it my Barcelona moment.
The questions I’m most proud to have got right: 3) What sort of creature is a sarcastic fringehead?
4) Who invented the collapsible opera hat?
Kevin Ashman, known as ‘the greatest quizzer ever’, question setter for Brain of Britain and winner of Mastermind
I watched quizzes as a kid but, in those days, there weren’t so many around. When I was working in the civil service they had quite a high level competition and enough people from there said I should go in for Mastermind that I thought, why not?
When I was choosing my Mastermind specialist subject I had to pick something that hadn’t been done lots before like, for instance, the American Civil War. I was going to go for American foreign policy since the second world war but they thought that too narrow. I settled on American political history from 1932 to 1980, ending with the election of Reagan. You need a cut-off point, or it becomes too hard to research every contemporary news story. For my second appearance, I chose Martin Luther King.
I don’t have a photographic memory. I have to make an effort to read up on popular culture – my interest is much more in history, geography and the arts. I used to use my two-hour commute to read as much as I could. That’s stood me in very good stead.
When I was doing Mastermind I did a certain amount of list-learning but, to be honest, I’m getting increasingly lazy. I don’t read a daily newspaper; I read weekly magazines like Newsweek or the Economist instead. Life’s too short.
And I’m a technophobe. I used to look at Teletext for news, though I’ve moved over to apps now. The internet has changed the playing field for quizzing, of course – it’s so much easier to look up answers now.
I have quite a random, chaotic mind, which makes me good at general knowledge. But I do use dates; I’ve always had a fairly encyclopedic memory for them. I have a huge chronology in my mind, so if I’m asked a question like “Which artist painted this work in 1632,” I use my timeline to think who was active at that time and work it out.
The questions I’m most proud to have got right: 5) Of the 50 American states, which state joined at the halfway point ie which was the 25th state to join the union?
6) How many states were in the original union?
Dorjana Širola, the only woman to win University Challenge twice
When I was 17 I went on a Croatian TV quiz called Kviskoteka, or “Quizcotheque”. It wasn’t because I wanted to be on television – I just watched it a lot and knew I could answer most of the questions. There’s obviously an element of competition, of curiosity, of challenging yourself.
As University Challenge is a team quiz we knew certain things were sure to come up, so we divided those between us. One of the team, Luke Pitcher, learned all the UK prime ministers and the periodic table; I had to learn all the kings and queens of England. One of our bonus rounds was on joinery, as in carpentry. I didn’t have a prayer!
Is there sex, drugs and rock‘n’roll in quizzing? Well there’s alcohol, yeah. And rock‘n’roll, yes. And sex? Sure. But at the European Quiz Olympics, for example, while you’d like to go out to a bar, you finish quizzing at midnight and it starts again at 9am. So you end up trying to answer questions on just a few hours’ sleep.
Quizzing is still seen as a geeky pursuit, and I think it’s always been more acceptable to be a geek if you’re male. It’s also viewed as male-dominated, which will repel a lot of women. It’s a vicious circle; we need to get more women, but the geeky, laddish reputation puts them off. When I’m setting questions I always try to include ones about women. In a standard quiz, there might be just three out of every 100 questions about women, and they tend to be about singers or actresses. I try to counteract that – but you do still get feedback that there were too many women-related questions.
The question I’m most proud to have got right: 7) Alcofribas Nasier was a pseudonym of which French Renaissance writer, physician and humanist?
The question I can’t believe I got wrong: 8) Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time cycle consists of how many books?
Answers: 1) Gerald Ford. 2) Kenya. 3) A fish. 4) Antoine Gibus. 5) Arkansas, 1836. 6) 13. 7) François Rabelais (this won Somerville College the final of University Challenge.) 8) 7.
• How Quizzing Got Cool: TV’s Brains of Britain is on BBC4 tonight at 9pm. Want to go to a Christmas quiz hosted by QI? Book here.
