He started, so he had to finish sometime
As John Humphrys bows out as host, MARION MCMULLEN swots up on Mastermind
1 Glasgow student Jonathan Gibson became the youngest person to win BBC’S Mastermind this week. The 24-year-old, below, won by four points in the final and scored a perfect 11/11 in his specialist subject on comedy song writing duo Flanders and Swann. His other specialist subjects were Agatha Christie’s Poirot, in the heat, and politician William Pitt the Younger in the semi-final.
2 Monday’s final also marked John Humphrys’ last episode as host of Mastermind. The 77-year-old has presented 735 episodes of the series and asked more than 80,000 questions during his 18 years on the quiz. He said: “Mastermind is one of those programmes you tinker with at your peril.”
3 Mastermind started in 1972 and the first show was filmed at Liverpool University. It has had four presenters – Magnus Magnusson, Peter Snow (below), Clive Anderson and of course, Humphrys.
4 The long-running quiz show has as its distinct prop an imposing black chair in which contestants sit and attempt to answer the challenging questions. The original chair was presented to Magnus when he left the show and the current chair is a 1969 design by Charles and Ray Eames.
5 Icelandic-born Magnusson was billed as the show’s “Interrogator” and hosted the quiz for 25 years. He was the first to utter the famous line: “I’ve started – so I’ll finish.”
6 Clive Myrie, a BBC news journalist and a regular presenter of the BBC News at Six and Ten, is to be the new presenter of Mastermind and said: “To be at the helm is a dream come true. I’m excited and can’t wait to get stuck in.” The quiz will be filmed in Belfast in July and will return to screens later this year.
7 Television presenter Noel Edmonds hosted a junior mastermind for schools in the 1970s called Hobby Horses. It was open to children aged 10-15 who answered questions about a particular hobby.
8 Mastermind’s creator, Bill Wright, a former RAF gunner, drew on his wartime experience as a Prisoner of War in Germany during the Second World War to create the original interrogation style of the show. The series was initially thought to be too highbrow and aired in a late-night slot when it first began but it went on to notch up a huge audience in peak hours. The series has been nominated for a BAFTA three times in the past, in 1976, 1977 and 1981.
9 Mastermind was dropped by the BBC in 1997 but returned on BBC2 in 2003 with John Humphrys as the new question master. The quiz format has also been sold to countries around the world including Australia, Ireland, Russia, Turkey, India and Kazakhstan.
10 Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt joked she could not even remember her own name when she took part in the celebrity version of Mastermind last year, answering questions about BBC comedy Bottom. She described the experience as being scarier than appearing on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here.