Was University Challenge always as much of a talking point as it is now? Thanks to the power of watch-along social media, the 56-year-old quizshow has become a temporary star-maker, bringing brief flashes of attention to its more idiosyncratic contestants, though female participants still have to weather a running commentary on their appearance before we get to their brains. None were more prominent than Bobby Seagull and Eric Monkman, captains of rival Cambridge college teams in the 2017 competition, who were lauded for their lightning-fast brains and quirky ways, and then became best friends. They have made the most of a partnership that is, in Twitter hyperbole, “iconic”, teaming up to host a Radio 4 show about polymaths and publishing a book, which no doubt featured questions that were a cut above your average pub-quiz picture round.
This show is another attempt to harness the power of the Monkmania brand (poor Seagull, having a name that is so hard to riff on – Seagull-timate Warrior?). The unlikely lads – “no ordinary tourists”, though they look quite a lot like ordinary tourists – are sent off on a tour of Britain to find out about inventions and the history of engineering, as told through the stories of local curiosities. They start in Blackpool, to try out Sir Hiram Maxim’s Captive Flying Machine, a ride built in 1904 to simulate flying, in order to raise funds for Maxim’s attempts to build a non-attached flying machine, which, of course, did not succeed. Monkman explains centrifugal force with the muted enthusiasm of someone far too bright to be explaining the basics of centrifugal force, but nevertheless, he is very charming about it.
They move on, to Southport, to visit the British lawnmower museum, which was a missed opportunity for it all to go a bit Sightseers, but allowed Brian, who showed them in, to use two lawn-based puns in barely a second. Then, via a detour to Britain’s tallest tower, the mast at Emley Moor, they end up at Jodrell Bank, marvelling at the power of the observatory’s design and power. For a show that has genius in the title, it didn’t impart a great deal of wisdom, and seemed too skittish to stay in one place for long enough to throw out the truly nerdy facts and explanations that this could have taken. I wanted diagrams, re-enactments, something along the lines of Drunk History – with a little bit of brainy swagger.
One of Monkman and Seagull’s attempts to work out the height of the mast involved reading a sign that explained how far the lift travelled in a minute, and then noting how long it took for the lift to get to the top, and working it out from there. I am the proud holder of a hard-earned B-grade GCSE in single science. Even I might have figured that one out.
But it isn’t really a How Stuff Works affair. Those shows are spectacles that tend to revel in the whiz-bang of showy experiments, and they usually involve chucking two explosive things together to explain, you know, physics and stuff. This was more of a travelogue, with a few facts thrown in, and a deep appreciation of the awkward moments that arise when Monkman and Seagull drive themselves around the UK.
There were Alan Bennett touches here and there, such as when it came to Monkman’s need to break the silence of a long drive by offering biscuits, more than once. The two of them exploring a museum built in a phone box, clearly uncomfortable with their proximity to one another, was held for an extended beat that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in The Office. Their warmth and appeal came from their relationship to one another, rather than them pretending to read a map in wild West Yorkshire winds, or explaining that originally phone boxes were supposed to be silver, and not red.
It was all very gentle and amusing, if a little too gentle at times, bordering on slightly slight. I worried that it might skirt too close to making Monkman and Seagull the butt of the joke, rather than celebrating their thirst for knowledge, but to its credit, it never quite did.
“It’s given me a desire to continue exploring,” said Seagull at the end, which is handy, as he has three more episodes in which to do so.
