CLIVE MYRIE, NEW HOST OF TV’S MASTERMIND
I can be stern too ...it isn’t comedians they have reading the 10 o’clock news
The darkness, the spotlight, the upright chair, the stern inquisitor and the ticking clock. The creator of Mastermind Bill Wright drew his inspiration for the foreboding quiz show format from his time as a PoW being grilled by the Gestapo.
But Clive Myrie, who follows Magnus Magnusson and John Humphrys in the role as quizmaster, thinks he knows what contestants must fear the most as they fight for the coveted glass bowl.
BBC newsman Clive, 56, said: “You look back, as I have done, on the presenters. You look at Magnus Magnusson, and, yes, he could be stern. I can be stern too – it’s not comedians they have reading the 10 O’clock News. So that side is taken care of.
“The question is, what is it about Mastermind that’s supposed to be scary?
“Is it the presenter? Is it the chair? Is it the darkness or the spotlight? Is it the time element, the ticking clock?
“It’s the questions that are the baddie. It’s the chair that’s the baddie. It shouldn’t necessarily be me.”
Clive, who is taking over almost 50 years after the first Mastermind was screened on September 11, 1972, wants the competitors, some of the top quizzers in the country, to do their best.
He said: “This is their Olympics. This is their World Cup. This is it when it comes to quizzing.
“I firmly wish all the contestants well and I don’t necessarily think the public want to see a bloodbath or that they want to see torture.
“They want to see a spectacle where contenders feel comfortable enough to do their best. Be afraid of the questions and the chair – don’t be afraid of me.”
After more than 30 years as a newsman for the BBC, Bolton-born Clive is excited about his new role but intends to carry on with the day job.
Named the RTS Television Journalist of the Year in February, his powerful reports from the Royal London Hospital during the darkest days of the pandemic secured his place as one of the very best in the business.
Clive, who has also been a BBC foreign correspondent, based in locations from Tokyo to LA, said: “I will absolutely carry on with the news. That heavier stuff is part of who I am. It’s part of my personality. To want to report on the lives of people. Adversity, it’s often where you see the best of humanity and the worst.
“To be able to see that is fascinating and it’s important to be able to relate the stories to the public.”
However, said Clive, there is a lighter side to his personality, too. So much so that some of his pals laughed when they heard he was going to be the new face of Mastermind.
He said: “They think it’s hilarious. My close friends think it’s crazy because they know me as a bit of a joker.
“It’s interesting because they know there is a serious side to my personality, the side that comes out on the news. But at the same time, they know there’s my lighter, slightly madcap side, and to be able to project a bit more of a threedimensional idea of who I am is nice.”
That’s not to say he has any plans to mess too much with Mastermind. It was, after all, just a matter of months ago that
John Humphrys issued his parting words of wisdom as he stepped down from the role after more than 750 shows.
Clive said: “Mastermind is one of those programmes you tinker with at your peril. Allow a contender to choose a light-hearted subject and the cry goes out, ‘Dumbing down!’ Change the format even slightly and you are, ‘Sexing up’.
Clive, who travelled to Belfast last month for filming, added: “The basic fundamentals, you do not mess with. I have not messed with them.”
So the show’s catchphrase, “I’ve started, so I’ll finish” will remain.
Clive said: “Because of the time element, you want to get as many
You hope to be the right fit. I hope over time I will make it my show CLIVE MYRIE NEW HOST OF MASTERMIND
questions asked as possible. Now, if the buzzer goes and you’ve started a question you need to indicate that they get that question.
“They will get that extra chance in order to possibly win the whole damn thing. So you need to signal that.
“Magnus Magnusson came up with ‘I’ve started, so I’ll finish’. It’s a pretty good phrase. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Why mess with it?”
The first black Mastermind host, Clive was appointed after the BBC announced a diversity drive last year.
But the significance of his appointment in that respect is not something he has given much thought to.
He said: “It’s a question a lot of people want to focus on. I tried from the very beginning not to allow race and colour to dictate my journalism and dictate my career. If other people want to read into that I’m black and that I’m doing this, then that’s fine.
“But I don’t wake up thinking, ‘I’m black and I’ve got to be on TV now, this is a big deal’. That’s not something that crosses my mind.”
And following broadcasting heavyweights Magnusson and Humphrys, as well Peter Snow who took the show to Radio 4 for two years and Clive Anderson who brought it briefly to the Discovery Channel, Clive hopes that one day audiences will come to associate Mastermind with him. He said: “I suppose there is a bit of pressure that you don’t want to mess it up.
“You hope you’re the right fit but at the same time I’m exhilarated and excited about the opportunity. So, yes, there are big shoes to fill. I hope that over time, I’ll make it my show and people, when they think of Mastermind, will think of me. That’s the aim.”
His parents, Lynne and Norris, who came to Britain from Jamaica in the 1960s, are proud of his achievements.
But he said: “If you’d said to my parents in 1975 when I was sitting cross-legged watching Mastermind on the TV, ‘Right, your son could be a doctor or a lawyer, or he could be the bloke on TV asking those questions’, what would their reaction have been?
I suspect they would have wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer.
“But my parents have basically resigned themselves to the fact I am not a doctor or a lawyer, that I am, in fact, a journalist and they’ve got used to the idea.
“They’re very happy and they’re very proud that I’m hosting a show they watched when they were in their 30s and 40s, a show they loved.”
With just days left until his first episode goes out, Clive has given some thought to what his specialist subjects might be if the tables were to turn.
He said: “Jazz could be up there. Or the operas of Puccini might work. I’ve been a foreign correspondent based in the States for quite a while if you add up all the years, so I know the American presidency pretty well. I’m a big Man City fan, so maybe the history of Manchester City from 1976 to the present day.”
But invited to display his quizzing prowess with a quick-fire general knowledge grilling, Clive declines.
He said: “No, I’m the host, I’m supposed to ask YOU the questions.
“I’m like all journalists. I know a little bit about lots of things. There’s absolutely no reason why, as the host of Mastermind, I should be expected to know the answers to everything.”
But he added: “I do. Because I’ve got them written down on a bit of paper. I have the all-seeing eye.” Clive Myrie is the new Mastermind host from Monday, August 23, at 7:30pm on BBC Two and iPlayer.