Episode 75 Eggheads

These people are amongst the greatest quiz players in Britain.

Together, they make up the Eggheads,

arguably the most formidable quiz team in the country.

The question is - can they be beaten?

Welcome to Eggheads, the show where a team of five quiz Challengers

pit their wits against possibly

the greatest quiz team in Britain.

They are the Eggheads.

Taking on our awesome quiz champions today are...

Now, this friends and family team

have been quizzing together at the Oaklands pub in Borehamwood

for four years and they regularly win. Let's meet them.

Hello. My name's Elliot and I'm a pawnbroker.

Hello, I'm Jim. I'm a production and quality engineer.

Hello. I'm Alan. I'm an accountant.

Hi. I'm Joe. I'm a SAP finance analyst.

Hi. My name is Paul. I'm a freelance journalist.

-So, Elliot and team, welcome. Great to see you. ALL:

-Hello.

What's great here is you do quiz together a lot.

Yes, every Wednesday night we quiz at the Toby and every fortnight,

another local pub. We normally do quite well.

-So, you're well-practiced?

-Yes.

The name Sadfellas, tell us why.

Well, we're all big fans of Goodfellas.

But we're not that good.

-So... Sadfellas.

-Did you all go to Las Vegas at some point?

Yeah, some of us have been to Las Vegas a couple of times.

You recreated Goodfellas there?

Sort of, yeah. I always make a little film after the trip

-and I did it on a Goodfellas theme.

-OK. So we've got to think of

-Goodfellas music and just general...? All right.

-Yeah.

Well, I hope you can take this lot apart today.

Good luck. Always nice to have a team of people who quiz together

already, isn't it? Which we don't always get.

So the fact that you are a quiz team is brilliant.

Every day there is £1,000 worth of cash

up for grabs for our Challengers.

However, if they fail to defeat the Eggheads,

the prize money rolls over to our next show.

So, Sadfellas, the Eggheads have won the last four.

We're calling it a streak.

It means £5,000 is on the table to say that you can't beat them.

Let's start. The first head-to-head battle is on the subject of

Film & TV.

-I think we decided I was going to go.

-Yep, you're right.

-Definitely.

Elliot, OK.

Which Egghead looks like they've never been to the cinema?

THEY LAUGH

I'm sure they all have many times.

But I think I'll go for Lisa.

Elliot from Sadfellas,

Lisa from the Eggheads.

To ensure there is no conferring,

please take your positions in our famous Question Room.

Good luck on Film & TV, Elliot.

Would you like to go first or second?

I think I'll go first, please, Jeremy.

Your question.

What threatens to collide with Earth in the 1998 disaster film

Deep Impact?

Um...

They went up in a rocket to stop something colliding.

I believe that is a comet.

Comet is right. Well done.

Lisa...

Which James Bond actor appears briefly as King Richard

at the end of the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves?

It's Sean Connery.

Sean Connery is the right answer.

So your question, Elliot.

1981 saw the first broadcast of which children's TV show?

Blue Peter was way back in the late '50s.

Teletubbies, I think, was early '90s.

I'm going to go for Postman Pat.

Postman Pat is quite right. Yeah.

You can easily trip up on those ones.

Lisa, the 1970s drama series Secret Army was set

during which conflict?

Secret Army...

I wonder what it was about.

Because that would sort of help.

There's any number of '70s ones set during the Vietnam War.

So it could be the Vietnam War.

But if it's Secret Army, I wonder if it's like the women

left behind in World War II or something like that.

No, I'm just going to have to hold my hands up here.

I'll try World War II.

BARRY LAUGHS Eggheads, is she right?

-Of course.

-Yeah, you're right, Lisa.

And let's get the question answered, why was it called Secret Army?

Because it was about the Belgian Resistance.

The Nazis had conquered Belgium and it was about the resistance to them.

Right, Lisa. You've got it right.

Secret Army. Sorry, Elliot.

-It's annoying when that happens.

-Never mind.

Your question.

Which Hollywood actor was born in Kentucky to a beauty queen mother

and TV presenter father?

Well...

I'm not sure, but Kentucky...

I don't think Brad Pitt is from the Southern states.

I'm going to guess and I'm going to go for Sean Penn.

Is he right, team?

-Do you know?

-I don't know.

-Do you know?

-DAVE:

-George Clooney.

George Clooney is the answer.

Two out of three. Can Lisa take advantage?

Here is your third question

to get in the final, Lisa.

In November 2015, which actor angered a number of film reviewers

with his satirical piece entitled An Honest Film Review,

which was written for the New Yorker magazine?

Now, I'm going to discount Chris Hemsworth.

He's a smart fella,

but if you're going to write a satirical

piece in the New Yorker, it sounds like something that

one of the other two might be more likely to do.

If I was... Yeah. Well, I am.

I was going to say, "If I was on the spot

"and had to pick one of them as being the likely culprit..."

You know, that's exactly where I am.

So we'll just scrap all of that and go for Jesse Eisenberg.

Jesse Eisenberg is the right answer, Lisa. Very well played.

I love him. I'm glad I've got another reason to love him.

Yeah, well played. With just a tiny glimmer of this and that

got you there. So, well done. Elliot, sorry.

-Never mind.

-Skipper knocked out by an Egghead.

Not a good start but plenty of time to take revenge, Challengers.

Come back and we'll play on.

So, the Sadfellas have lost one brain from the final round.

They've become a little bit sadder.

The Eggheads have not lost any.

Time for Goodfellas-style revenge now. OK?

LAUGHTER

Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's pushing it a little bit.

LAUGHTER

So, Arts & Books is the subject.

THEY CONFER

-It's me.

-You going for it, Alan?

-Alan is going to take that.

-It's going to be Alan, the accountant.

OK, against which Egghead?

Not Barry.

Kevin, please.

OK, you are taking on the main man.

Alan from Sadfellas versus Kevin from the Eggheads.

Please go to the Question Room now.

Alan, against Kevin, would you like to go first or second?

I'll go first, please.

Here we go.

The Van Gogh Museum is a feature of which city?

I would say Amsterdam.

Yeah, cos he was Dutch, wasn't he?

-Absolutely.

-You're right. Amsterdam is correct.

Kevin...

A 1949 landscape painting entitled The Football Match,

which sold for a record £5.6 million at auction in 2011,

is a work by which artist?

I think Lowry actually did a couple of football-themed paintings

with people going to the match

and at the match. So LS Lowry.

LS Lowry is correct.

Alan, in which novel by John Wyndham

do aliens melt the earth's polar icecaps

causing cataclysmic flooding?

Erm, I have read some John Wyndham, but it was a long, long time ago,

and I certainly do remember reading Day Of The Triffids.

I don't think it's that. I think it's The Kraken Wakes.

He was sort of ahead of his time with science fiction,

-wasn't he, old John

-Wyndham? Yeah.

-The Kraken Wakes is correct.

OK, Kevin.

The large painting Beverly Hills Housewife

was completed in 1967 by which leading British artist?

Well, I don't know the...

I don't know the painting. There's an implication there

that it would be somebody based in California.

Not necessarily, but...

I'm not aware of Lucian Freud or Peter Blake

being there or doing that,

but the one who was based in California for some years

and did California-based paintings like A Bigger Splash and suchlike

was David Hockney.

So, without actually knowing it as such,

I think I would have to go for David Hockney.

Yes, the logic is impeccable. David Hockney it is.

Alan, the third question, as Elliot knows,

-can be crucial.

-Yeah.

-Who is the subject

of Philip Larkin's short 1970s poem that runs,

"In times where nothing stood But worsened, or grew strange

"There was one constant good She did not change"?

I can't say I'm familiar with the poem.

I'll go for his mother.

-Yeah, it's actually not. It's the Queen.

-Ah.

So, again, the Challenger's coming unstuck

on question three. Kevin has a chance.

In Harold Pinter's play The Homecoming,

what is the name of the brother

who returns to the family home from his work as a lecturer in the USA?

My initial... Hmm, I don't know, see.

My initial thought was Lenny, but then...

..I started to worry about getting confused with something else.

Erm...

I really can't remember, so I think what I'll do is

I will stick with my first instinct and say Lenny.

OK. The answer is Teddy.

-Ah. Sorry. OK, OK.

-So, equal after three

and, Alan, you got what Elliot didn't have,

-which is a little bit of a let-off there.

-Come on, Al.

-So, press the advantage here. Sudden Death, Alan, OK?

-Yeah.

Gets a bit harder. I don't give you alternatives.

Which play by John Osborne

uses the life of a historical religious figure

to explore, as he put it,

"religious experience and various other things"?

I'd say the only thing that pops into my mind is Waiting For Godot,

but I don't think that's by him anyway, so I don't know.

-Waiting For Godot.

-Yeah, it's not Waiting For Godot.

-The play is called Luther.

-OK.

So, the name of the religious person is the name of the play.

Kevin, to take the round. Sudden Death.

In which decade did Andre Breton write the Surrealist Manifesto

setting out the ideology of the movement?

-Er, that was the 1920s.

-Do you know exactly when?

-'24.

1924. THEY LAUGH

You don't even need to ask the decade.

You can ask the year with Kevin.

Well, you've taken the round, grandmaster.

So, sorry, Alan,

been knocked out.

Come back to us, rejoin your teams and we'll see what happens next.

OK, so, the Sadfellas have lost a second brain now

from the final round.

Eggheads are still looking a little bit complacent.

The next subject is History.

-Joe, do you want to take that?

-It's up to you, Jim.

-What do you reckon?

-Yeah.

Well, I don't mind doing it, but do you want me for the last bit?

Oh, I see. Well, what's, tactically, the best thing to do?

-I'd put in Joe.

-Put me in?

-Yeah.

-OK.

-All right, Joe.

-Who am I going to play against?

-Joe against which Egghead?

-It can be either Barry or Pat or Dave.

-Oof!

-Barry.

-There we are.

-Barry?

So, Joe from Sadfellas versus Barry from the Eggheads,

known as The Brain.

To ensure there's no conferring, please go to the Question Room.

Don't let that put you off.

-We've had a look at your History stats, Barry.

-Oh, yes?

-You've played 38.

-Mm-hm.

-Lost three.

-Oh! Not bad.

-OK, so, Joe, would you like to go first or second?

-First, please.

Here we go. Good luck.

What was the population of England and Wales

at the time of the 1911 census?

I think it's a low number. I don't think it's quite high.

I think it was very low.

So, I think six million.

No, it was more than that, actually.

I think six million would probably be kind of Stone Age, would it?

-Oh, no, but further back.

-When was this...?

-Tudor times were about six million.

-Tudor times. Right.

-Yeah.

-So, it was 36 million.

-Oh!

OK, Barry, your question.

Which structure was originally built in London's Hyde Park

before being transferred to Sydenham Hill,

where it stood until 1936?

It was built by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851

and it was the Crystal Palace.

Crystal Palace is quite right.

Back to you, Joe.

The German pocket battleship the Admiral Graf Spee

saw action in which of these battles?

Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm going to have to guess on this one.

-Battle of the River Plate?

-Barry, is he right?

He is. I've actually been in Montevideo.

I've seen the gun turret of the Graf Spee.

They have it on display there.

There we go, Joe. You got it right.

Barry,

which spouse of a British monarch was born in 1819

in the Schloss Rosenau near Coburg in Germany?

Well, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married George VI,

so that's much later than that, so that can't be the case.

And Princess Mary of Teck married George V, so that can't be the case.

But Prince Albert, I believe, married Victoria in 1842,

so he'd be about the right age, so I'll go for Prince Albert.

Yeah, nicely done. Prince Albert it is.

So, Joe,

-you've got to get this right to stay in.

-OK.

Which British social activist adopted a son

whom she claimed was the messianic leader

and reincarnation of the world teacher?

HE SIGHS

Josephine Butler?

-Barry?

-No, Annie Besant was a theosophist,

and I believe, if I'm not mistaken,

she adopted somebody called Krishnamurti,

who she wanted to intend to be the leader of the world.

So, I'd go for Annie Besant.

Annie Besant is right and the details are right, too, Barry.

Sorry, Joe.

He's on good form in History.

So, that's 39 History rounds and only three losses, Barry.

Return to us, please, and we will play the next round.

Eggheads, on the census,

we had that first question - 36 million in...

-What was it? 20th century?

-1911.

-1911, yeah.

-So, 1841, England and Wales - 16 million.

-Oh, right.

Early 1700s, England and Wales - six million.

-Oh, right.

-Wow.

-So, not as long ago as we thought.

Just a little bit off with the Tudors, then.

-Yeah, the Tudors were...

-50 years off.

So, the Sadfellas have lost three brains from the final round.

You're going to have to do one of your videos, Elliot,

-at the end of all this.

-Oh, I know.

-THEY LAUGH

Not yet. You haven't lost yet.

Eggheads are still sitting there just thinking, "Oh, we're the best."

But you've got to stop them. Next subject is Music.

Who would like this?

Last one before the final, so this could be the moment.

-Will I do that, Jim?

-It's got to be you.

-Jim?

-Jim.

-Which Egghead would you like, Jim?

-Pat's all right. Dave?

Dave, please.

Jim from the Sadfellas versus Dave from the Eggheads.

And please go to the Question Room now.

But before we play Music, Jim,

you should tell us about your role with NASA.

-Well, it wasn't actually NASA. It was a project for NASA.

-Right.

We made the detection unit for the SOHO Telescope.

We also made bits for the Hubble Telescope.

We made the detection unit that actually...

It converts the signal the telescope sees

to the pictures that NASA and other agencies produce.

Did you have the radio on while you were doing this?

-That's the key thing for the Music round.

-Absolutely.

-Good.

You're up against Dave. Do you want to go first or second?

First, please, Jeremy.

Your first question.

The chorus of which Dolly Parton song contains the line,

"Please don't take him just because you can"?

As far... I'm pretty sure it's not 9 To 5,

I'm certain it's not Here You Come Again,

so it must be Jolene.

Yes, Jolene. And, Lisa, come on, give it to us.

# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

# I'm begging of you please don't take my man. #

-Lovely.

-Encore!

-And what a song.

-That's a top, top song.

-Did Dolly write that song? I've always wondered.

-Yeah.

-Did she?

-I think so, yes.

OK, Dave.

-Yeah.

-In which decade were Michael Jackson singles

Farewell My Summer Love

and Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' first released?

Well, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' is '80s cos it's from Thriller.

I thought Farewell My Summer Love was from an earlier...

..genre because I thought it came from the '70s.

But I'm going to have to go for...

It's based on Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'.

That's from Thriller, so that's the '80s. 1980s.

1980s is quite right. Back to Jim.

Which former member of Supergrass released the album Matador,

which was shortlisted for the Mercury Award in 2015?

Well, I'm pretty sure it's not Danny Goffey.

I would think it's Gaz Coombes.

Yeah, it's Gaz Coombes.

Dave.

-Yeah.

-Released in 1968,

Dance To The Music was a UK top ten hit

for which soul and funk group?

-1968?

-'68.

I've got to go Sly & The Family Stone.

Sly & The Family Stone is right.

Over to you, Jim.

The American musician Link Wray

was renowned as an innovator on which musical instrument?

That name's not familiar.

-I think it's harmonica.

-Challengers, do you know?

-I would have said harmonica.

-I would have said harmonica.

Yeah, they all agree. It's guitar, though.

Guitar is the answer,

so Dave has a chance now.

The Great is the name given to which classical composer's ninth symphony?

Right, cos I'm just trying to think.

Cos I thought Schubert's eighth was his unfinished,

so I could be wrong.

Hector Berlioz, not...

I'm going to go Pyotr Tchaikovsky, please.

Let's see if the Eggheads know this. Eggs?

-It's Schubert.

-Schubert.

-Schubert.

-C major.

-So, was Dave right that the eighth was the unfinished?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

So, you're equal after three. We go to Sudden Death.

Jim, your first question. I don't give you alternatives.

Greased Lightning is a song from which musical?

As far as I remember, it's sung about a hot rod

and it's from the musical Grease.

Yes, of course. Grease is right.

Dave,

which rapper was shot dead in the early hours of March 9th, 1997?

Got to go Tupac Shakur.

-No, you're wrong. Biggie Smalls.

-Right, OK.

-Otherwise known as The Notorious BIG.

-OK.

So, Dave, you're out. Well done. We've got a victory here for Jim.

How about that? So, that's good, Jim.

You'll be in the final,

and if you come back to us, we will play that final round.

So, this is what we have been playing towards.

It is time for the final round,

which, as always, is General Knowledge.

But I'm afraid those of you who lost your head-to-heads

won't be allowed to take part.

So, that's Elliot, Alan and Joe from Sadfellas,

but also Dave from the Eggheads.

Would you please now leave the studio?

Jim and Paul, you're playing to win the Sadfellas £5,000.

Kevin, Lisa, Pat and Barry,

you're playing for something that money can't buy,

which is the Eggheads' reputation.

As usual, I will ask each team three questions in turn.

This time, they're all general knowledge.

You are allowed to confer. So, Sadfellas, the question is -

can you, with your two brains, defeat these fabulous four?

-Would you like to go first or second?

-We'll stick with first.

Your first question, Challengers. Good luck.

What type of music most often featured

on the 1960s television programme "Ready Steady Go!"?

-There's only one it's got to be, isn't there?

-Yeah.

It's got to be pop, hasn't it? So, we'll go pop.

Pop is the right answer.

Eggheads,

a Sally Lunn is an example of what kind of food item?

-Teacake, isn't it?

-Teacake?

-Go with teacake?

-Absolutely.

-Everyone happy with that?

-Yeah.

-Is she from Bath?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, she was a lady from Bath

and it's a teacake named in her honour.

Didn't know this. I would have been embarrassed by this one.

Teacake's right.

Sadfellas, who would be

most likely to create the type of carvings known as scrimshaw?

Well, scrimshaw is carving on things like whale tusks and teeth.

So, that leaves out shepherds and foresters

-and leaves us with sailors, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

So, we're going to go for sailors.

Sailors is right. Two out of two. Well done.

Back to you, Eggs.

Which football club played its home games

at the Goldstone Ground between 1902 and 1997?

Why are you laughing, Kevin?

-I'm not laughing, no. It's Brighton.

-I thought...

-Oh, yes, you've said it. Yeah.

-Then they moved to...

-That closed down and they moved to the Withdean Stadium...

-Of course.

..which was with athletics track attached,

and there, they've got their own new purpose-built ground

in the last couple of years. It's Brighton and Hove.

We're going for Brighton and Hove Albion.

Brighton and Hove Albion is correct. So, two-two.

OK, now the third question -

the one that was the undoing of some of your colleagues.

The O'Higgins Region is an administrative area

of which South American country?

-For me, it would be a total guess. Um...

-It would be for me as well.

It's not a word that I think I'm familiar with.

Not at all.

We're just going to have to put this one on the line

and have a total guess.

Erm, do you want to put one forward or do you want me to?

-Well, what one would you go for?

-I'd go for Chile.

-Go with that.

Chile.

Chile is your answer. Are they right?

-Yes.

-Yes, you're right. Well done.

Three out of three. Now, you may not have to do any more for the £5,000.

-HE LAUGHS That may be it.

-Please!

Eggheads, which American Republican politician

was the unsuccessful vice-presidential candidate in 1976

and the unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1996?

-Bob Dole.

-Bob Dole was the only one that ran for president.

Do we know whose VP he was? Somebody who lost, obviously.

Well, he was vice-presidential candidate in '76,

so that would have been for Ford, so, um...

But he was certainly the Republican candidate in '96.

-Bob Dole?

-Bob Dole.

Um, we're going for Bob Dole.

Bob Dole is correct.

OK, so,

three-three. Sudden Death. Final round.

£5,000 to play for. I don't give you alternatives from here on in.

What type of fine, lustrous silk

takes its name from the Persian word meaning to shine or spin?

-Nothing comes to mind straightaway for me.

-No, nothing springs to mind.

-Just trying to think.

-A silk that shines?

Was it a silk-like material? Cos that could be satin.

-Could be.

-Don't know.

-What do you think?

-I don't know.

-We don't know. Sorry.

-Sure you don't want to just take a stab?

-Do you want to say...?

-I can't think of anything, no.

-OK.

All right, so, you've passed? Eggheads, do you know?

-Could it be taffeta?

-Taffeta is the answer.

I know, if you'd thought of that,

you'd have come straight out with it. Taffeta.

So, Eggheads, if you get this right,

the contest is over.

What name is given to the rearmost lobes of the brain

that contain the main visual centres?

Well, there's temporal, parietal and occitipal.

-Occipital.

-Occipital.

-The rearmost lobes?

-Rearmost.

-That would be the occipital.

-Frontal...

I think temporal and frontal are at the top

-and that means parietal and occipital...

-Yeah.

So, I think it might be occipital, but I'm not 100% sure.

I mean, they'd certainly be at the back.

Well, it's the occiput, isn't it?

-Yeah, that's the phrase for the back of the skull.

-Yeah.

So, if we're actually talking about things that are called lobes,

as opposed to something that are different...

A different name but with a similar function, then...

Maybe it's the visual cortex.

That is supposed to be at the back of it, yeah.

Could it be something as simple as the visual cortex?

-Is that one thing, though, Barry, or two?

-Ooh, I don't know.

-But I think, on balance...

-It's safer to go with...

-Well...

-..occipital lobes?

-I would think.

-Try occipital lobes.

-I would think, but, yeah.

-Right, happy?

-Yeah.

OK, we've had a bit of pondering here

and we're going to go for the occipital lobes.

-Yeah, I can accept that. Oxipital, ochipital.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

And we say congratulations, Eggheads. You have won.

You went through... Barry went through, brilliantly -

who's had a storming day today -

went through all the different parts of the brain

and then we all kind of parked that and you talked about it

and I thought, "Maybe you'll forget the occipital."

But then you came back to it.

So, commiserations, Sadfellas. Sorry about that.

The Eggheads have done what comes naturally to them.

They still reign supreme over quiz land.

It means you won't be going home with the £5,000,

so the money rolls over to our next exciting show.

Eggheads, very well done. Who will beat you?

Join us next time to see if a new team of Challengers

have the brains to defeat the Eggheads.

£6,000 says they don't. Till then, goodbye.