“Sure, happy to help” is probably my most frequent utterance and is responsible for a lot of good trouble in my life. It’s how I met my wife, landed my dream job and ended up as this season’s champion of Australia’s toughest quizshow, Mastermind.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work at AFTRS, the Australian Film Television and Radio School, for the last seven years. One of my former students, Beatrice, emailed to ask if I’d share a casting call for Mastermind Australia with everyone at work. But when I did, I was surprised to see the smartest and most eloquent people I know respond with a flicker of panic – as though they were already in the chair – followed by a polite “no”.
As a recovering people-pleaser, I put in an application myself. And a few weeks later, after a trivia test where I scored a paltry six out of 10, I got the call. I was in.
For those unfamiliar with Mastermind Australia, four contenders each face a two-minute round of questions on a specialist subject of their choosing, then 90 seconds of general knowledge. The winner progresses to the weekly final, where they face a two-minute general knowledge round, then a round called the Slow Burn, during which the contenders are given 10 clues to identify something in a specific category, such as books, food, landmarks, inventions; the fewer clues you need, the more points you get for a correct answer.
The winner of that weekly final then progresses to a semi-final with new specialist subject and general knowledge rounds. The four semi-final winners then compete in the grand final with a third specialist subject, a Slow Burn round and a general knowledge round. Across 85 episodes, that’s 240 contestants competing for one trophy.
My top picks for my specialist subjects – Golden Age Simpsons (seasons four to 10, fight me) and the Game of Thrones novels – were too popular. Instead, the producers seized on my third choice: the Jack Parlabane novels by Scottish crime author Christopher Brookmyre. For a show where Welsh narrow-gauge railways was once a subject, my fears this choice was too niche were unfounded.
Rereading the nine Parlabane novels was a joy, but this time I was on the lookout for anything that might make an interesting trivia question. For example, a major reveal in Country of the Blind involves the song Arena; I had a hunch it might come up, but couldn’t recall the band (Skids). Sure enough, it did – but thankfully it was the song title they were after.
To memorise publication dates, I linked each book to where I was in life when I read it. For example, Dead Girl Walking came out in 2015, when I was in a long-distance relationship and working a job I hated. Contestants are given a source material list to prepare from, but it’s still unnerving to publicly declare yourself an expert in something, only to have a professional quiz writer say, “Oh really? Hold my beer.”
Trivia is one of the few socially acceptable ways to be an insufferable know-it-all, and I’ve always been blessed with a good memory, so I didn’t overly prepare for general knowledge; I played a few Identify This Flag-type quiz games and looked up who’s on the $50 note. I focused instead on what I could control: my specialist subject.
When filming day arrived, I was more nervous about letting Beatrice down than anything else. I had a very pleasant chat with the other contenders in the green room, though I could sense the crew had been directed not to make any sudden movements, lest they rattle some already rattled people.
One last nervous wee and bam! I’m under the lights and first up. Turns out that someone writing quiz questions just for me is my love language. I hit what I imagine is flow state (possibly dissociation) before … Beep-beep-beep. No passes. All correct. Fourteen points.
I needed five correct answers in general knowledge to win the episode and managed six, taking me straight to the weekly final. Until I saw the episode weeks later, I couldn’t tell you a single one of the questions.
I was thrilled to come back as a finalist and, when I did, I was more shocked than anyone to nail my general knowledge round, scoring 14 before we even got to the Slow Burn. Correctly identifying “cringe” as both a genre of comedy and a word that you can remove a letter from to become an anagram of “nicer” won me a slot in the semi-final.
Now I needed to pick (and study simultaneously) two new specialist subjects.
The semi-final was surprisingly the most nerve-racking, as my motivation wasn’t “win a quizshow”, but “please let me play one more time”. If I didn’t nail the movies of Kevin Smith, one of my new subjects, I’d never get to the Preacher comics of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, my grand final specialist subject.
Sixteen points was my reward for a gloriously misspent youth behind the counter at Video Ezy in Crows Nest. To say Kevin Smith was influential on my life is akin to saying Quentin Tarantino likes feet – correct, but woefully understated. Revisiting his films took me back to what made me want to make movies in the first place. I only got one answer wrong, which felt like a fitting tribute to one of my heroes.
I held my nerve – again, I have no memory of the questions asked – and earned enough points in my general knowledge round to advance to the grand final. They sat my family directly behind the host Marc Fennell. No pressure.
For the grand final, I’d taken care to study issue titles, forewords and publication dates, not just plot and character, which was vindicated mightily when I was asked, “What kind of animal is Charlie?” Answer: he is Ennis’s (fictional) pet mongoose. Beep-beep-beep. A perfect round and another 16 points.
My fellow finalist Laura crushed it with 14 correct answers about the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice and Simone nailed her round on the movies of Matthew McConaughey with 14 points. Steve didn’t do as well on the speeches of JFK – but everything can change with Slow Burn.
I had the last choice and ended up with “Franchise” as my Slow Burn category. The answer is invariably something you have at least heard of; however, the clues to get you there start very obscure. Consequently, I needed six clues to get Star Wars, putting me equal to Simone and Laura with 20 points each going into the final general knowledge round.
Laura pulled off impressive nine correct answers, so the pressure was on. I know at least one answer was Florence, as my father barely resisted heckling when I got it wrong, but otherwise it was a total blur. Once I returned to Earth, I learned that I was two points ahead with 11 correct answers. Marc asked me how I felt about Simone going next and I said, “well, she’s very impressive”. Someone in the audience laughed. My wife told me later that it had sounded like I had arrogantly said “that’s very impressive” of my own score. Trash talk is definitively not my style and certainly not very Mastermind.
I distinctly remember thinking, “you might have this” for the first time in the whole competition, but I was terrified of getting ahead of myself. Within seconds of meeting in the green room, Simone, Laura, Steve and I had bonded over this very unique shared experience we were all having. All of us said that by now we really didn’t care who won. As I watched Simone’s score grow, I couldn’t concentrate enough to count her correct answers as I was cheering her on in my head.
Beep-beep-beep. Nine points for Simone. Tears sprang to my eyes and my ears started ringing. In a daze I stood up as confetti cannon went off and I was handed the bowl I had seen on TV for years. There are fewer Mastermind Australia winners in the world than people who have walked on the moon – which, come to think of it, is a great trivia question.
My win hasn’t really sunk in yet, I think due to a combination of impostor syndrome and sheer disbelief that I even ended up on a quizshow. The whole experience has reinforced for me how important it is to be curious and to love things. My fellow grand finalists had such generosity of spirit and an infectious enthusiasm – they seem like people who say “sure, happy to help” a lot too.
• Mastermind Australia is on SBS and SBS OnDemand
