Geeks GO BACK IN TIME
University Challenge brainboxes Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull revisit some great inventors in a riotous new show
Bobby Seagull has a problem. He only feels safe to drive when his friend Eric Monkman is in the passenger seat. The duo have completed their second tour of Britain following their BBC2 series Monkman And Seagull’s Genius Guide To Britain, and the Cambridge mathematician drove in his blue Mini, with his eccentric Canadian chum beside him.
‘If Eric is there, discussing ways to calculate the mean density of the Earth or 18thcentury methods of isolating oxygen in air, I have no difficulty at the wheel,’ says Bobby. ‘Mirror, signal, manoeuvre, it all comes naturally. But when I’m alone, even on easy roads, driving is much harder. My family don’t trust me behind the wheel!’
The solution is obvious: Bobby will have to design a hologram of his pal, who’s currently in Toronto in lockdown. They chat regularly and team up for lighthearted quizzing, but that’s no substitute for a Monkman in the car. Luckily, if anyone can build a hologram from spare parts in the shed, it’ll be Eric or Bobby – two of the most brainy contestants to appear on University Challenge. In 2017 they faced off in the semi-finals, with Bobby captaining Emmanuel College and Eric leading Wolfson College, also from Cambridge.
Wolfson won (but lost the final) but that isn’t what’s remembered. The rivalry between Seagull and Monkman captured imaginations – Bobby with his Bollywood star looks and Eric with eyes burning with concentration behind spectacles the size of cinema screens.
What viewers didn’t guess was that Bobby, a maths teacher doing a PhD, and Eric, an academic, had struck up a friendship. Their natural rapport led to a BBC Radio 4 show about maths and then the travelogue for BBC2, discovering the stories of famous inventions – a real pot pourri of science.
But the new series is organised – a journey through the Industrial Revolution from 1750 to 1900. They begin with the earliest of factory machines, such as Richard Arkwright’s water-driven cotton-spinning jenny, and end with the discovery of subatomic particles – the start of modern electronics.They simulate the undersea telegraph wire at a Cornish beach, and try an explosive experiment first done by Sir Humphrey Davy, who was (according to Bobby and Eric) the David Bowie of the era.
Their time-travelling quests spill into schoolboy fun, fuelled by the boiled sweets they munch endlessly. When they inspect an early steam engine, they can’t resist racing the train on foot, and a lecture on the evolution of the penny farthing into the bicycle of course ends in a two-wheeled race.
‘We had a lot of fun,’ Eric says, ‘especially dressing up in period costume. I really enjoyed that, smearing my face with coal dust or wearing a tricorn to re-create James Sadler’s maiden hot air balloon voyage. I was method acting!’
‘Curiosity propelled us forward,’ says Bobby. ‘I love dressing up too – the grandeur of the Brunel top hat appeals to me.’
For all the fun, there’s a serious side. The perpetual students think about how science unpredictably changes the world. After all, Eric says, it was the creation of the underwater propeller for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Britain steamship that allowed us to migrate between continents.
Science may not yet control Covid-19, but the men hope quizzing can help. Bobby runs #QuizForNHS on YouTube, which mixes gruelling questions with easier general knowledge, airing on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8pm. Saturday’s family shows end with karaoke. You don’t get that on University Challenge.
Monkman And Seagull’s Genius Adventures, May 18, 9pm, BBC2.