Mastermind (quiz)
Mastermind is the most traditional British television quiz and is currently running on Friday evenings on BBC Two . It has nothing to do with the logical pegging game of the same name . The program has been broadcast by various stations since 1972 with small interruptions, only the quiz radio program Brain of Britain is longer in the program. The current moderator is the Welshman John Humphrys (* 1943).
The half-hour program consists of a combination of a two-minute round with questions on a special topic chosen by the candidates themselves and a two-and-a-half-minute general education round - four candidates per program therefore only play four and a half minutes per person. The randomly selected first candidate sits down on an armchair across from the host, introduces himself with his name and profession and names his special topic, then questions are asked one after the other until the time is up. If he does not know a question, he can either say “pass”, which is followed by the next question, or guess what has the disadvantage that if the answer is wrong, the correct answer is read out time-consuming. Correct answers result in a point, incorrect answers do not lead to a point deduction, they only cost time. After all candidates have played their first round, the last placed one starts the general education round; the points from both rounds are simply added up, whoever has the most at the end wins. The candidates never play directly against each other as in the otherwise similar The Big Prize , there are also no risk questions or jokers.
The best candidates qualify for a semi-finals or annual finals, for new programs one usually also takes other specialist areas. Well-known winners of these annual finals include a. 1983 Chris Hughes (subject of British steam locomotives until 1963 ), in 1995 the multiple quiz world and European champion Kevin Ashman, who set the current record (total number of points) of 41 with his subject Martin Luther King , and in 2005 the Irishman Pat Gibson ( first topic Quentin Tarantino ), quiz world champion from 2007 and millionaire winner at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? who are all three professionals on the Eggheads show today. A correlation can be seen from the fact that all three also won the annual finals at Brain of Britain .
Over the years, a wide variety of spin-offs have emerged and some have been pulped again, v. a. for celebrities, but also for children or in Welsh.