| 1 | | HARDLY a pub in Britain does not have | | | | |
| | a quiz night and there can be few | | | | around the contestant’s face - that it attracted |
| | households without some version of “Trivial | | | | 10m viewers. Most of them could not possi- |
| | Pursuit”. Being humiliated in front of your | | | | bly have been interested in, let alone actually |
| | friends for not knowing the first name of the | | | | answer, questions about such improbable |
| | chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise, or | | | | subjects as “The Postal History and Philately |
| | being cheered for recollecting which father | | | | of South Africa”. Yet for 25 years absorbed |
| | and son won Oscars for “The Treasure of the | | | | they were, perhaps by the programme’s |
| | Sierra Madre”, has become a national | | | | classlessness (the winners varied from a |
| | pastime. Mastery of useless information is a | | | | retired ambassador to a taxi-driver), but more |
| | British obsession. | | | | certainly by the tension which destroyed more |
| 2 | | Who is responsible for this lamentable | | | | than one participant. The programme was |
| | state of affairs? Passing on this question is not | | | | presided over throughout by Magnus |
| | now permitted - it was Bill Wright, a BBC | | | | Magnusson and his history marvels at the |
| | producer who was haunted by a wartime | | | | keenness of people to endure the ordeal, not |
| | Gestapo interrogation. In 1971, he responded | | | | least the contestant whose appearance caused |
| | to the BBC’s demand for a brainy television | | | | him to be exposed as an unfrocked priest and |
| | quiz by pitting one contestant at a time, spotlit | | | | bigamist. |
| | and isolated in a sinister black chair, against | | 4 | | His is more than a tally of winners and |
| | an interrogator and the clock. Mr Wright | | | | losers lightened by disclosures of edited-out |
| | exorcised his personal ghost, translating his | | | | bloopers and backstage secrets. It is an |
| | name, rank and number responses as a POW | | | | account of how a television quiz show, |
| | into the introductory questions to each con- | | | | normally held to be the enemy of intellect, |
| | tender - name, occupation, and specialised | | | | made braininess respectable. Though the BBC |
| | subject. “Mastermind” is his masterstroke. | | | | has decided to kill it off before it declined, it |
| 3 | | So compelling has been the format - the | | | | seems improbable that it will not be revived. |
| | theme music aptly titled “Approaching | | | | Then, surely, somebody will take as their |
| | Menace”, the long walk to and from the chair, | | | | specialised subject, “The Life and Times of |
| | the camera angle tightening like a noose | | | | Mastermind, 1972-97”. |
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