It’s your Starter for 60 years
BY
YOUR starter for 10, no conferring: Which ridiculously successful quiz show is about to celebrate 60 years on the box next month?
A clue: Thousands of students have faced the trickiest of questions.
Stars who appeared in specials include the likes of Helen Worth, alias Coronation Street’s Gail Platt.
And it inspired the coming-of-age movie Starter For 10, starring James McAvoy and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Yes, all right, it’s an easy one to get you off the mark!
University Challenge marks its diamond jubilee on September
21. Host Jeremy Paxman, 72, is off after a remarkable 28 years – while the show’s first question master, Bamber Gascoigne, was in the chair for 25 years, from 1962-1987.
Taking over is Radio Four Today show presenter Amol Rajan, 39, who is stepping down as the BBC media editor.
INTELLECT
He said: “I have vast shoes to fill. With his immense intellect, authority and respect from students and viewers alike, Jeremy hands over a format, and show, as strong as ever.”
Sixty years – with a seven-year break from 1987 to 1994, when it switched from ITV to BBC2 – is a remarkable feat.
But even executive producer Peter Gwyn seems unsure about the secret to its success.
“It seems an unlikely survivor because on paper the format is so minimal,” he admits.
“There’s a presenter, two teams of students and several dozen rather difficult questions – and that’s it.”
Paxman has been grilling students and dishing out withering looks of disdain since 1994. The notoriously tough host is stepping down amid his battle with Parkinson’s Disease.
He says: “I’ve had a blast hosting this wonderful series for nearly 29 years.
“I’ve been lucky enough to work with an amazing team and to meet some of the swottier brains in the country.
“It gives me hope for the future.” He will film his last series this autumn, with viewers seeing the final episodes next summer.
Peter says Paxman was an inspired choice for the chair, adding: “He
There’s a host, two sides, some difficult questions... and that’s it
brought inquisitorial tone to the programme, much relished by the student teams who were thrilled to come up against the Mighty Paxo and wanted more than anything to have him shout at them for any perceived lapse.
“Jeremy, for his part, has a genuine fondness and respect for the student population, which he does everything within his power to hide.”
Original host Gascoigne died this year, aged 87. Peter says: “Bamber gave the impression that he’d briefly stepped out of his ivory tower of academia to conquer the world of television with effortless ease.” University Challenge
sees two teams of four face quickfire questions. The knockout competition starts with 28 teams. In 2015, boffin Ted Loveday, 28, was hailed as the best ever contestant after taking less than three seconds to say he knew that hapax legomenon is the Greek term for “only said once”.
Eric Monkman, 35, won a cult following thanks to his furrowed brows and panicked expression.
He bagged himself a BBC show, with fellow University Challenge alumni Bobby Seagull, 38.
They hosted Monkman & Seagull’s Genius Guide to Britain
Quiz enthusiast Jenny Ryan, 40 – the Vixen on ITV’s The Chase – also
made a name for herself on the programme. University Challenge has also had its fair share of celebrity contestants. As an English literature student at Newnham College, Cambridge, Call The Midwife star Miriam Margolyes, 81, appeared in the very first series.
MUTTERING
She was the first woman to swear on British TV – muttering “f*** it” following a wrong answer. Miriam recalled: “I met Bamber Gascoigne again and he said he remembered me.
“It’s one of the loveliest things in my life. I went on national television and made a bit of an a*** of myself because I swore!” Tories Michael Gove and Kwasi Kwarteng both appeared as students – while PM Boris Johnson was on the losing team of broadsheet journalists when they took on the tabloids in 1999.
The show has gone down in cult comedy history with a number of spoofs. The most famous, in a 1984 episode of The Young Ones, saw Scumbag College pitted against the Footlights College team from
Oxbridge.
Former QI host Stephen Fry, 64, was in the sketch, alongside the likes of Ade Edmondson – while Griff Rhys Jones played Gascoigne.
Fry was on the show for real in 1980 – in the Queens’ College, Cambridge, team that finished runners-up.
He recalled: “We were in awe of Bamber, who was completely charming. It was fun but I wish I hadn’t worn a college tie. It made me look even more like a d*** than usual.”
In 1990 Corrie did a
sketch for
Comic Relief, where Paxman faced a team of “ordinary people” from Weatherfield. Helen’s character Gail was joined by TV’s Jim McDonald (Charlie Lawson), Vera Duckworth (Liz Dawn) and Curly Watts (Kevin Kennedy) as they beat a fictional Cambridge team.
And the show hasn’t been without its scandal. In 2009, 5.3million saw Corpus Christie win.
But they were later stripped of the title after it emerged a team member was no longer a student.
■■60 Years of University Challenge (£20), published by Cassell, is available from September 8