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I always shout the answers out, yes! | 0:00:04 | 0:00:06 | |
University Challenge tournament. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:08 | |
Asking the questions, Bamber Gascoigne. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
Mostly we were virgins. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:13 | |
There were fumblings in the bike sheds, and occasional exposures. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:17 | |
But otherwise, it was knickers on, I'm afraid. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
I have two types of questions. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
Starter questions and bonus questions. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
I think the rule is quite clear. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
You buzz in, you answer. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:29 | |
-Pembroke, Macfie. -Canticles. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:31 | |
And they're off. Ten points to Pembroke. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:34 | |
-Private Eye, Hislop. -On a scale of one to ten of how competitive we were, about ten. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:40 | |
I was attracted to the role of Bamber because it really | 0:00:43 | 0:00:48 | |
-tickled me, the idea of it. -It was a great answer. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
1962, and the news was grim. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:05 | |
Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
In the same year, her old friend President Kennedy was threatening global annihilation. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:14 | |
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
launched from Cuba against any nation in the western hemisphere as an attack. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:24 | |
While the world watched in dread as politicians postured over Cuba, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:28 | |
in Manchester a television institution was born. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
University Challenge. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
Going against the fashion of the time, this show | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
would have intellectual bite, a far cry from your average quiz. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:40 | |
-Bamber Gascoigne! -In time, its contestants would go on to become Britain's brightest and best. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
Politicians, actors, film-makers and writers and, like the best ideas, its beginnings were modest. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:52 | |
There really were very few quizzes on television. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:56 | |
Later of course, things like Mastermind arrived. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
-Otherwise, it was game shows. -Twist the lever. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
-Um, women please. -Women, they're always good for a laugh. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:07 | |
The whole point of watching University Challenge is it wasn't darts, or the Golden Shot. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:12 | |
It didn't have a man in a big check suit, it had Bamber Gascoigne on it. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
He was clever. And he might have known the answers. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
The producers' biggest gamble was their choice of presenter. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:23 | |
His name was perfect. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
An anagram of "organised BBC game". | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
Hello, and welcome again to the knockout competition on University Challenge. I was I think | 0:02:27 | 0:02:33 | |
27 when we did the auditions. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
It was '62, I was 27. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
Of course, the students were only 21 or whatever. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:40 | |
And at that age, six years of difference, I was old man of the hills, so to speak. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:45 | |
I knew everything and they were just undergraduates. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:47 | |
That is a full 10 points for that. Now, second piece. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
OPERA MUSIC PLAYS | 0:02:50 | 0:02:51 | |
-OK, fine. Good. -Carmen, Bizet. | 0:02:57 | 0:02:59 | |
Very good, Carmen's Bizet. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
Rather, Bizet's Carmen I mean! | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
Bamber had a lot of charm. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:05 | |
And also, he was not patronising. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
Students at that time were very used to being patronised. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
-Very good, ten points to Keele. -He had no airs or graces. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
He wasn't dominating. | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
And here is your bonus for 20. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
And he was the kind of guy lads would like to have a drink with and chat with. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
I think that was a key feature of Bamber's personality. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:27 | |
Three girls and one man against three men and one girl. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
This is the age of equality. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:32 | |
Apart from he has the name, it's just so great, Bamber Gascoigne. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
How do you get to be called Bamber? | 0:03:35 | 0:03:37 | |
What strange accident happened at the font? | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
The vicar was drunk or something, "I name this child Bamber. Sorry, too late!" | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
-And there he was, Bamber. -He seemed the sort of perfect professorial figure. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:49 | |
And urbane, and obviously incredibly well-read and erudite. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:55 | |
But kind of wise and gentle as well. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
Kind of an Obi-Wan Kenobi figure. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:02 | |
# ..He's a soft-spoken guy # All so sweet and shy... # | 0:04:02 | 0:04:09 | |
# Makes me wonder why... # | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
He was gorgeous. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
He had very, very blond hair. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
It could have been assisted, I'm not sure. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
But it was startlingly blond. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
And a very cheeky and friendly expression. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
Hello again and another needle match tonight. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
Seeing Bamber Gascoigne there was like | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
seeing the god Apollo seated on a throne. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:44 | |
And he was just incredibly dishy. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
You sat there going, "Ah, wow." | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
# I just can't wait, I just can't wait to be held in his arms... # | 0:04:49 | 0:04:55 | |
I think he was cool. We thought it because he was. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
He was phenomenally... | 0:04:58 | 0:05:01 | |
Handsome, isn't the word. He was beautiful. | 0:05:01 | 0:05:03 | |
He was indeed pretty sexy actually. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
We thought so anyway. I'm not sure if he realised we thought that, but we certainly did. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:09 | |
Talking of fan mail, the story I often tell because it gives me such pleasure, almost the first letter | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
I received for University Challenge was very far from being a fan letter. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
It was the precise opposite and was, I think, the most perfectly | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
crafted abusive letter ever to be sent through Her Majesty's mail. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
And it said, "Dear Sir, | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
"Professor Lovell calculates in the Sunday Times this morning | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
"that there must be at least 1,000 other planets in this universe equally as far developed as our own. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:38 | |
"But of one thing I'm certain and that is this. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
"That on all these planets there cannot be another single broadcaster | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
"with an equally pansy bastard strangulated voice like yours." | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
So I thought my career had come to an end within weeks of beginning. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
A bonus of 20 coming. What man has been shared by all these women? | 0:05:52 | 0:05:57 | |
Fernande Olivier, Olga Koklova... | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
-St Hilda's, Evans. -Picasso. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
Picasso, ten points St Hilda's. 30 seconds to play, your bonus of 20. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
We all thought it was a job for three months. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:08 | |
Had anyone known the first run of it was going to last for 25 years, and we are talking about a job for 25 | 0:06:08 | 0:06:14 | |
years, I think we'd have all been so frightened we could hardly have read the card. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
But Bamber wasn't the only innovation new to a quiz show audience. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
For the first time, the public was confronted by a then alien beast, the student. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:26 | |
Hello, and tonight in University Challenge we have what is virtually | 0:06:26 | 0:06:31 | |
a war of the roses because, one of our teams comes from Yorkshire, and the other from Lancashire. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:36 | |
The captain for Manchester is Tony Boyd. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
Many people regarded students as very much a race apart. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
And very much coming from the upper and middle classes. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:46 | |
And when some of us appeared on the television we patently weren't. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
-Manchester, Boyd. -Equality of mercy is not strained. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
-Will you complete the sentence? -But falleth as a drop as the gentle rain from heaven. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:57 | |
'My accent, my northern accent, you could cut with a knife. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
'I think that did impress people that maybe ordinary people could actually go to university.' | 0:07:01 | 0:07:07 | |
I did watch it as a kid. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
I sort of didn't really understand what a student was, it seemed a very strange thing. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:16 | |
The only time you ever encountered students on British television was in Brideshead Revisited. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:23 | |
Come on, Charles. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
Oh, you're not coming? | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
Yes, aren't I? Delighted, dear boy. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:33 | |
Well, that's a surprise. I suppose I'll have to go in the back. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
I suppose you realise this is going to be one of the most stupefyingly boring balls of the season? | 0:07:36 | 0:07:42 | |
I haven't been to too many balls this season, so that's all right. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
-Mottram will lay on a good Jag. -Nearly lost the bubbly. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:47 | |
You're not going to drive like this all the way to London, are you? I shall be sick? | 0:07:47 | 0:07:53 | |
University Challenge was the flipside of that, I suppose. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
There were people with regional accents, it seemed more democratic. | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
Bernard Austin from West Ham reading politics. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
Gordon Masterton from Charlestown, Fife, reading concrete structures. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:06 | |
That idea | 0:08:06 | 0:08:08 | |
really appealed to me, that you could go somewhere and just | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
learn, that you could go to this place where knowledge was sacred. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
The show was an overnight success with 11 million viewers tuning in. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
Making their third appearance after two victories. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
For many, going to university was as likely as stepping foot on the moon. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:29 | |
In the show's early days, Britain boasted just 30 universities. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
To increase the pool of entries, Oxford and Cambridge colleges were | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
invited to enter as separate entities. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:38 | |
At the time, such favouritism was hardly noticed. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
And, if it was, students didn't complain. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
# ..The stars up above | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
# Why must I be a teenager in love? # | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
Remember, this was the 1960s, and the Sixties really didn't begin until 1967 anyway. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:57 | |
So it was just after the war in many ways, and we were well behaved. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:01 | |
I don't think anybody is as innocent nowadays as a 19-year-old | 0:09:01 | 0:09:07 | |
boy was then, in 1962. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
# Why must I be a teenager in love? # | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
It it just feels like another generation, not just another generation. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:21 | |
It feels like another universe altogether. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
Peter Jones from St Essex, reading Greats. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:29 | |
Roger Tomlin of Monmouthshire, reading Greats. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
You said, my name is Julian Fellowes from Chiddingline, East Sussex. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
And it was sort of, rather thrilling that your village was on television. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:41 | |
It was all a long time ago I'm afraid. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
And it was a more innocent world. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:45 | |
Mostly we were virgins. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:47 | |
There were fumblings in the bike sheds and occasional exposures | 0:09:47 | 0:09:52 | |
but otherwise, it was knickers on, I'm afraid. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:54 | |
Knickers may have been on, but exhibitionism was rife. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
From the start there was a stampede among students looking for the chance to get on TV and show off. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:05 | |
I was incredibly impressed by the depth of knowledge of these young men, all of whom, when I | 0:10:07 | 0:10:12 | |
first started watching it when I was 13 or 14, seemed terribly grown up. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
Encyclopaedic in what they knew. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:18 | |
There was I remember an audition in college for people who thought they might like to | 0:10:18 | 0:10:23 | |
go on the team, and about 60 of us crammed into this room and failed to answer general knowledge questions. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:28 | |
A friend of mine said, "Go on, you do it." It was a dare. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:32 | |
Maybe not "auditions", but "test", for anybody who wanted to be in the University Challenge team. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:38 | |
There was a general knowledge questionnaire. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
And I obviously came out among the tops. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
Then they had knockout rounds to get down to the team that was going to do the show. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:49 | |
And being the kind of show-off person that you have to be, to be on | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
University Challenge, I thought, I'll have a go. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
Happily, no tape of the show survives. I know that. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
When you look at me, I look like an unsuccessful contender in an Elvis look-alike contest with this | 0:10:59 | 0:11:07 | |
yeti wig on my head. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
Bamber quickly became renowned for having a brain the size of a small planet. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
It was an image he was happy to encourage by cunning use of the tools of the quiz master's trade. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:20 | |
Don't be surprised, I promise you it's right. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:22 | |
He had this extraordinary mixture of quiet knowledge, you knew he knew the answers to the questions. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:29 | |
I'm damn sure he did for most of them because he set a lot of them. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
What novel, and I must confess I'm improvising because I see | 0:11:32 | 0:11:35 | |
the second part of the question was, "who wrote it." | 0:11:35 | 0:11:37 | |
I've given you that, so I'll have to improvise. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
What novel by Kingsley could maybe be associated with the phrase, "Go west, young man." | 0:11:39 | 0:11:46 | |
-Westwood Ho. -Five points. -You can tell he's got a great brain. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
He looks like he had, under his hair. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
And everything about him was clever. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:54 | |
But there was a lovely gentleness to it. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:56 | |
After all, he was the man in charge of the question cards. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:59 | |
Bonus questions were always on pink cards. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:02 | |
And the starter questions on blue cards. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
Each one would have a reference on the back saying where the information had come from. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:09 | |
These were always sent down to Bamber to his home in Richmond where he would make them up into games. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:16 | |
Very quickly, a devilish question especially set by | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
me for you, but I thought you'd get much more neurotic about it. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
My biggest ritual of University Challenge which I could not remotely have dared to do the show without, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:26 | |
and I used indeed to have nightmares of doing a show without questions that I knew about. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:32 | |
On the day before, I would clear my desk, put on all the volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica | 0:12:32 | 0:12:37 | |
and, for the whole day, I would read the questions for tomorrow's show. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:41 | |
He would then adjust them to his own particular style of delivery by scribbling all over the cards | 0:12:41 | 0:12:48 | |
in a very spidery handwriting which I found quite difficult to read. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
As a matter of tuning the questions to | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
what I thought the show needed, and I did spend a massive of time on it. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:56 | |
And it also was trying to keep alive the public's completely erroneous impression that I was omniscient, | 0:12:56 | 0:13:04 | |
which I became rather enamoured of the idea of that which began quite soon. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
I didn't want to let them down by revealing gross ignorance. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
And so, writing relevant pieces of information on my card was crucial. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
We had a question, Which English Romantic poet died young in 1821? | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
And I wouldn't have had a clue whether the answer was Keats or | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
Shelley, both of whom died young around then. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
So, the answer is Keats. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
When one looks up Shelley, to my absolute delight I remember, Shelley died a year later. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:30 | |
It was really very close, 1822. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:32 | |
So you put on your card in brackets, Shelley 1822. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
And you secretly hope they will mention Shelley. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
Because if they mention Keats of course, you can't say, that's quite right. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
And incidentally Shelley died a year later. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:43 | |
But if they mention Shelley, you say, "Oh bad luck, he died just a year later in 1822!" | 0:13:43 | 0:13:50 | |
"No, the answer is Keats." So that's what it's all about. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
Bad luck. No, bad luck, very bad luck. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
# Walking back to happiness, hoop-la whoa yeah | 0:13:55 | 0:14:01 | |
# Said goodbye to loneliness hoop-la whoa yeah... # | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
Being asked tough questions by the brain of Britain in front of 11 million people was no light task. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:10 | |
It was enough to panic the most confident of competitors. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:15 | |
My abiding memory of my appearance on University Challenge was I got an answer wrong. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:21 | |
And in my rage and frustration, I let fly with the expletive that begins with F for Freddie. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:28 | |
And there it is on television. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
And now I believe it's been lost because it's been wiped. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
But it wasn't Ken Tynan who said it first, it was me! | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
So, lots of support for Keele and now Queen's. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
Richard Barber from Shepperton, Middlesex, reading Natural Sciences. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
Stephen Fry from Booton in Norfolk, reading English. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
It's like going to the Houses of Parliament for the first time. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
They really do make that noise, "Hear, hear, hear..." That sort of thing. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:58 | |
-Similarly, it's rather wonderful to be in Granada and see they really do go, "Queen's, Fry." -Queens, Fry. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:04 | |
Hansel and Gretel. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:05 | |
Correct, ten points to Queen's and a bonus of 15. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
And the starter for ten was a classic catchphrase of its day. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
Let's go straight into the game, here's the first starter for ten. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
A big one coming here, your starter for ten. Bonus of 15 coming. Your starter for 10. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:18 | |
Thursday is named after the Anglo-Saxon god, Thor. For whom is Wednesday... | 0:15:18 | 0:15:23 | |
- Woden. - Woden is correct. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
Who was the South African who received the Nobel Peace Prize... | 0:15:26 | 0:15:31 | |
I know this. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:32 | |
Well, I've got all sorts of ideas but I can't think what the answer is. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:40 | |
-You're on your own, no conferring. -Well, there you go. -Is it, um, um... | 0:15:40 | 0:15:46 | |
HE BURBLES | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
-What was the question? -Um... | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
-Trout! -What, did I know that answer? | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
The interesting thing about a catchphrase is, you never realise you're going to create it. | 0:15:55 | 0:16:00 | |
"Starter for ten" was the first, obviously. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:02 | |
-The answer, it was? -Pen? | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
No, Mars. "Fingers on the buzzers" is more interesting. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:07 | |
Early on, I was aware that very often people were not managing to answer the question because some | 0:16:07 | 0:16:13 | |
people were ready with their fingers on the buzzer and others were sitting | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
about smiling and listening. And then were going like that. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
And so I naturally said, to help them all, "Fingers on the buzzers". And that becomes a catchphrase. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
Pressing the buzzer was the easy part. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
Following up with an answer was another matter. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:28 | |
When you pressed the buzzer, automatically everyone else's buzzers cut out. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:34 | |
In fact, when you're watching television, it looks as if this | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
person from Manchester University knows the answer to this question. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
In fact, probably all of them have pressed the button. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
And you have to get the trick of pressing the button when you think you might know the answer. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:49 | |
And I pressed the button instantly and of course the camera focused down on me, everybody stares at me, | 0:16:49 | 0:16:55 | |
some voice screams out, "Simpson, Magdelene." | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
And then I was left as it were with nothing between me and eternity. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
And I made a complete fool of myself on one question, when it was, | 0:17:02 | 0:17:07 | |
"Who is the thousandth descendant of the Emperor...?" | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
And it turned out to be the Emperor of Japan was the answer. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
But I had read that weekend in one of the colour sections that, for some reason or other, | 0:17:15 | 0:17:21 | |
a clown who was popular at the time, Joey the clown, had claimed descent from the Holy Roman Emperor. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:27 | |
So, I thought this was a trick question. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:32 | |
And I pressed the button and said Joey the clown. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
And I can remember Bamber Gascoigne looked at me as if I'd gone completely mad. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:39 | |
He just thought, when can I just get rid of these four people and get some sanity back on to this show? | 0:17:39 | 0:17:45 | |
I loved the sense of the excitement, and the notion of really being able | 0:17:45 | 0:17:49 | |
to busk it, and get through on sheer gutsiness and imagination, | 0:17:49 | 0:17:57 | |
I loved all of that. It may have been black and white, and I may have been wearing a dreadful suit | 0:17:57 | 0:18:03 | |
and a white shirt and tie, but I felt this was me, this was where I belonged. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:09 | |
Watching it when I was a teenager, I was aware of two things. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
One is how clever these students were, how much they seemed to know. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:15 | |
And the other thing was, how old they looked. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
Queen's, Barber. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:19 | |
# Because you're gorgeous | 0:18:19 | 0:18:23 | |
# I'd do anything for you... # | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
The students may have felt they'd arrived, but the reality of the show was anything but glitz and glamour. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:33 | |
Picture bonus. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
The set was incredibly makeshift in those days. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
It was like going to a garden shed with cardboard cut-outs. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
You sat behind the panel and what you were sitting at was little more | 0:18:42 | 0:18:46 | |
than a workbench basically. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:49 | |
It was very cheap and very thrown together. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:52 | |
It was the antithesis of the slick glossy | 0:18:52 | 0:18:57 | |
money-orientated game shows. | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
It always felt slightly kind of plywood. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
Makeshift and cheapskate perhaps, but University Challenge did have | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
a couple of technical innovations which became the stuff of legend. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
When Challenge went on air, all our viewers were quite convinced | 0:19:12 | 0:19:18 | |
that the teams were actually sitting one on top of each other. | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
Whereas, in fact, they were sitting side by side in the studio. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:25 | |
And by electronic trickery, we placed one on top of the other. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:31 | |
I seem to remember one of the teams who'd realised they were on top, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:35 | |
showering bits of torn-up paper on to the team below | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
which of course never arrived on them because it just landed on the floor in front of them. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:44 | |
And another team, when there was a girls' college which was the uppermost one on the screen, | 0:19:44 | 0:19:50 | |
these boys all tended to do this from time to time, as if they were trying to look up their skirts! | 0:19:50 | 0:19:56 | |
Just six years after those buttoned up first shows, times were changing. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:05 | |
By 1968, the Beatles had swapped rock and roll for meditation. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
# I am the god of hellfire! And I bring you... Fire! # | 0:20:08 | 0:20:15 | |
And students had swapped books for banners. They were revolting. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
On the march and in-your-face, and that was just their hair. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
Political, vocal, radical, they were out to challenge authority at every turn. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:29 | |
I think the great change in student behaviour just has to be the international one of 1968. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:35 | |
Suddenly students felt the world was theirs, they could do anything. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
That authority was intolerable. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
Suddenly, on University Challenge, students coming on | 0:20:42 | 0:20:47 | |
were interested in | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
not behaving well deliberately. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
This is your life, do what you want, you know. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
That philosophy entirely occupied the moral ground. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
And everyone was going off to San Francisco and smoking dope. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
I mean, I wasn't, but there was a cloud of dope hanging over Cambridge. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:13 | |
You could hardly see the sun. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:15 | |
# What did you do there? I got high! | 0:21:15 | 0:21:18 | |
# What did you feel there? Well, I cried! # | 0:21:18 | 0:21:22 | |
There was a pub in Cambridge where you could get drugs if you wanted to, and there was a chemist's shop | 0:21:22 | 0:21:28 | |
which was rumoured to sell you things over the counter if you paid enough money for it. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:33 | |
I never had the money. And I was nervous about the whole idea of it. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:37 | |
# ..It's all too beautiful | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
# I feel inclined to blow my mind... # | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
It's often been suggested that one or two students were a little bit | 0:21:44 | 0:21:49 | |
high when programmes were recorded in our studios. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:54 | |
We didn't actually provide drink until after the programmes were over. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:59 | |
# ..Tell you what I'll do What will you do? | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
# I'd like to go there now with you... # | 0:22:03 | 0:22:05 | |
But I used to tell the teams where the nearest pub was. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
And said, "An odd drink is not a bad idea. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
"But a surfeit is a very bad thing." | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
What did we do? We went off and had a drink at the local pub. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
When I said, we had a drink, that's probably an understatement. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
We probably had several drinks. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:25 | |
The effect of this is our nervous disposition totally disappeared. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:30 | |
# We'll drink a drink, a drink to Lily the Pink, the pink, the pink The saviour of the human race... | 0:22:30 | 0:22:37 | |
We couldn't care less what happened. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
We were relaxed, we were looking forward to it. Nothing to lose. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
And of course in the context of University Challenge, that | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
couldn't have been better because, finger on the button, instead of worrying that you had the right | 0:22:46 | 0:22:51 | |
answer before you press the button, we were carefree and careless, pressed it and won the match. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:56 | |
# ..medicinal compound, and now he's learning how to fly... # | 0:22:56 | 0:23:02 | |
We were advised that having a drink before the show was a good idea. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
And I needed no second invitation. I had a very hard head even at that age so I had several drinks | 0:23:06 | 0:23:11 | |
in the pub beforehand, mostly barley wine which was a real student drink. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
It packed a huge punch per penny. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
# We'll drink a drink, a drink, to Lily the Pink, the pink, the pink... # | 0:23:17 | 0:23:23 | |
And the other great thing was you could smoke. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
In those days, everybody smoked, you were obliged to smoke, especially on television. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
It made you looked very intellectual. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
And I puffed my way through a packet of 20 No. 6. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:38 | |
I must have got through the whole packet in the course of the rehearsal and the programme. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
And my parents were just appalled, watching this at home. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
There was this revolting-looking youth with this terrible shaggy hair. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:50 | |
I looked like a female impersonator, wearing an ill-fitting wig. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:54 | |
Clouds of smoke and half cut as well. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
I just don't know how they survived the shame of it. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
There was one occasion when one had had the surfeit, and shortly into the programme, his head fell, thump! | 0:24:01 | 0:24:09 | |
With an enormous thwack. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
Not to be raised. We had to stop the tape, go in, drag him out, put the reserve in, and start again. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:18 | |
By the early '70s, 18 new universities had opened, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
but the rules of University Challenge stayed the same. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:28 | |
Oxbridge colleges were still regarded as separate institutions. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
As for the polys, well this was University Challenge. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
For some revolutionaries this was provocative evidence of the class system at work. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:41 | |
In Granada's own back yard a group of conspirators began to plot the overthrow of the old regime. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:51 | |
University Challenge at that stage firstly didn't let any Polytechnics | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
or Colleges of Further Education, who were of course our proletarian brothers and sisters in struggle. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:06 | |
And also, they let all these people from all the different Oxbridge colleges, so that | 0:25:06 | 0:25:11 | |
Oxford and Cambridge had about 40 teams between them, whereas Manchester University only had one. | 0:25:11 | 0:25:16 | |
So this was proof that it was an elitist institution, | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
a, if you like, a kind or ideological arm of the state | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
apparatus, and therefore we were entitled to take action against it. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
We used to have a remarkable rapport with the students, but there was one occasion | 0:25:30 | 0:25:36 | |
when the University of Manchester caused us a great deal of trouble. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
Bamber Gascoigne of course was a legendary figure, for all that he was the class enemy, | 0:25:40 | 0:25:45 | |
and before the programme, I found myself standing next to | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
him in the gents, so I could attest to the fact that, you know, he was a man just like any other man. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
And yet we were going to have to destroy his programme, his baby. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:59 | |
And they'd made this plan as some kind of protest | 0:26:02 | 0:26:06 | |
for the furtherance of the dictatorship of the proletariats at some date yet to be arranged, | 0:26:06 | 0:26:12 | |
that it would help by saying the name of Trotsky and Marx. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
Karl Marx? | 0:26:16 | 0:26:18 | |
Che Guevara. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:19 | |
Trotsky. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:21 | |
- Trotsky. - It just seems | 0:26:21 | 0:26:24 | |
faintly irritating because we stopped the show two or three times and said, "Look, don't go on being ridiculous, | 0:26:24 | 0:26:30 | |
"Why don't you just settle down and behave sensibly?" - Trotsky. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
-Karl Marx. -He said something about Pythagoras, we say Che Guevara. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
He says something about some Mozart opera and we say Trotsky. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:42 | |
-Trotsky. -Trotsky. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:44 | |
-Karl Marx. -Trotsky. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
And this went on for some time, but actually we only knew about | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
five or six revolutionary leaders so we ran out of that after a while. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
I remember Gascoigne's legendary patience getting a little frayed | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
by the end of it and I think he called them childish at some point. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
-The extraordinary thing was that it was shown. -Che Guevara. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:04 | |
Karl Marx. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:05 | |
Highly unpopular in this studio and tends to lead to ejections, so let's stop. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:10 | |
Indeed of course we were aware that if we did continue the show and show it, that actually they would | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
look quite ridiculous and it was their problem rather than ours. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:18 | |
Now of course, that would be headline news. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
It would be the big story on the front of every tabloid newspaper. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
Imagine if this happened on Countdown, though it's highly unlikely. Can you imagine that? | 0:27:26 | 0:27:33 | |
It's a wonderful picture, isn't it? | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
I'll have a... | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
consonant on behalf of the people, please, Carol. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
And I will have a vowel that sees every member of the aristocracy | 0:27:43 | 0:27:48 | |
shot and their blood running in rivers down Park Lane, please Carol. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
In 1979 there was a new presence in Downing Street, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:57 | |
and with it came an end to universal grants and hallowed privileges. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
# ..Daylight dawns You wake up and you're Mr Clean | 0:28:00 | 0:28:05 | |
# A piece of toast from the one you love most and you leave... # | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
My first year at university Margaret Thatcher came to power and that really | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
saw the end of any sense of students being a powerful, influential body, in national opinion. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:22 | |
And more fundamentally I think that what happened with Thatcher was that | 0:28:22 | 0:28:26 | |
it suddenly became important to get a good degree, and I think I was the | 0:28:26 | 0:28:29 | |
last of the student generations for whom it was supremely unimportant to get a good degree. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:34 | |
Where there is discord, may we be bring harmony. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:37 | |
Where there is error, may we bring truth. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
Where there is doubt, may be we bring faith. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
And where there's despair, may we bring hope. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:46 | |
What is the correct order for the six colours after all the reds have been pocketed in snooker? | 0:28:46 | 0:28:53 | |
Queen's, Fry. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:54 | |
Yellow, green, brown... | 0:28:54 | 0:28:59 | |
Blue, pink, black. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:00 | |
Correct, I wasn't giving anything away while you were saying it... | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
It was my first experience of being on television | 0:29:03 | 0:29:05 | |
and I was supremely nervous, and you don't know whether you're going to get some awful rush of blood to the | 0:29:05 | 0:29:10 | |
head and buzz too early all the time and keep getting it wrong. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
Or whether you're going to be so inhibited that you're not going to buzz at all, even when you know it. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:17 | |
The man who partnered George Burns in the film version of The Sunshine Boy? | 0:29:17 | 0:29:22 | |
Queen's, Fry. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 | |
Um, sorry, hang on, just... | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
It is? | 0:29:26 | 0:29:29 | |
Matthau. Walter Matthau. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
You got there just in time. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:34 | |
-All right. -And the fact that we got to the final, our team at Queen's, and lost to Oxford of all people. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:39 | |
It wouldn't matter if we'd been beaten by Keele or Imperial or Manchester or Leeds or Sheffield | 0:29:39 | 0:29:44 | |
or whatever, that would have been fine, but to be beaten by an Oxford college was just | 0:29:44 | 0:29:48 | |
the most humiliating thing of all so we had a lot of ground to make up. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
"...smile, if not why then this parting was well made." | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
Stephen Fry may have lost that final, but four years later he was back. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
Although this time it was in a sketch on The Young Ones and he was being asked questions by Bambi. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:10 | |
At least we're going to smash the oiks from Scumbag College on University Challenge. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
We've just got time before my balls drop. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
We didn't mind mocking ourselves as being apparent hoorays, you know. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:19 | |
I played a character called Lord Snot. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:21 | |
Well, I've done my revision. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:23 | |
The Daily Mirror Book of Facts - Did You Know? | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
Do you think that's where they get the questions from? | 0:30:28 | 0:30:30 | |
All the people who got on University Challenge are brainy. | 0:30:30 | 0:30:33 | |
You know that, don't you? Of course you do, you're brainy. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:35 | |
So, we never got the chance to go on. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:38 | |
It seemed perfect for the kind of place where we shouldn't be. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:41 | |
Oh, you love a lot of fur since we last met. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
And you're walking on two legs now, I see. But still the same old Bambi. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
I loved it. I thought that Griff Rhys Jones was absolutely brilliant apart from his feeble wig. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:51 | |
Is that true, Bambi? | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
Did you do a Disney nasty? | 0:30:53 | 0:30:54 | |
-So what if I did? -He's an icon. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:57 | |
And that's because Bamber looks a bit like Bambi. | 0:30:57 | 0:31:00 | |
He's innocent and fresh and has his chin up and is lovely. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:03 | |
We all had a crush on him. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:04 | |
We were deep ingrained, in the veins hetros, but we all really fancied Bamber. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:10 | |
Well, are you going to let us win? | 0:31:10 | 0:31:12 | |
No, of course not. The posh kids win. They always do. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
It's the kind of very understandable revenge | 0:31:14 | 0:31:18 | |
of the breeze block and red brick university against the dominance | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
of the hated Oxbridge cadre, both in University Challenge terms and in comedy terms. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:29 | |
Hello and welcome to another edition of University Challenge. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:32 | |
This week the teams represent Footlights College Oxbridge. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:35 | |
Rah, rah, rah! We're going to smash the oiks! | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
Our representatives, us ordinary people, and then having the Oxbridge lot on the other side, 'twas war. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:46 | |
'Twas war. It's the English Civil War. | 0:31:46 | 0:31:49 | |
Us, representing the crap, right mate? | 0:31:49 | 0:31:52 | |
And the poshies representing the posh. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
It was wonderful. We're getting thrashed! | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
We're getting completely thrashed! Isn't there some way we can cheat? | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
The real split screen joke began when The Young Ones did this... | 0:32:01 | 0:32:05 | |
And started pouring water down on the team below to prevent them answering the questions. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:11 | |
And that actually was a wonderfully funny joke. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
I'm completely bloody sick of this! | 0:32:14 | 0:32:16 | |
Comedians, hippies and punks - everyone loved University Challenge. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:25 | |
But even this show had its day. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
Shuffled round the schedules, modernised and made over, in 1987 it was finally dropped. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:34 | |
After 978 episodes Bamber Gascoigne uttered his last starter for 10. | 0:32:34 | 0:32:40 | |
From our new champions, Keeble, and from me until, may we hope, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
another series sometime in the future, that's the end of this one. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:46 | |
Until another time, perhaps, goodbye. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:48 | |
I'll go and say goodbye to the teams and congratulate them. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:51 | |
While the show was away times were changing. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
Everyone was into demos, not just students. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:56 | |
Margaret Thatcher made a quick exit from No. 10. | 0:32:56 | 0:33:00 | |
I feel there's a kind of lost generation of people who would have gone on and never got the chance. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:06 | |
And their mascots remain forever unclaimed. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
Sit-ins turned into raves. Even polytechnics grew into universities. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:14 | |
After just seven years in retirement the show was about to be reborn. | 0:33:14 | 0:33:18 | |
When I was asked to again I was very busy with an enormous project, which has kept me going ever since. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:25 | |
It's a bold concept - a history of the world on the internet. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:28 | |
Because I did spend so much time reading around the questions, | 0:33:28 | 0:33:31 | |
I just felt that I couldn't combine it with this new passion of mine. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:35 | |
And my wife said, "I've had enough of you being recognised all over the place. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
"Why don't you have a peaceful old age and be an ordinary chap again?" | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
I knew that Bamber wanted to give it up and I couldn't think who could do it. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:48 | |
Chancellor, when are interest rates going to come down? | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
-"Clark, Conservative". -Eh... | 0:33:52 | 0:33:53 | |
When economic conditions dictate. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
Yeah! Look, I'm not even doing that show. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:59 | |
The first time I saw myself on Spitting Image I thought, who's that supposed to be? | 0:33:59 | 0:34:02 | |
Then I thought, God, it's supposed to be me. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
Oh, why am I doing University Challenge? | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
-"Clark, Conservative". -Because you didn't get the job on Question Time. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:11 | |
That's right Ken, well done. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
When Jeremy got the job I thought, of course. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
Hello, welcome to a new series of University Challenge, | 0:34:21 | 0:34:25 | |
the legendary search for the UK's brightest student quiz team. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:28 | |
He couldn't be more different from me. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:29 | |
He has this image of being the tough guy, really a hard man. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:34 | |
And I was always a bit of a softie really. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:37 | |
Bamber was a kindly don eliciting information from his very bright students. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:42 | |
Paxman is disappointed that today's students just don't know enough. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
-No, if you buzz you must answer. You lose five points. -Sorry. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:51 | |
-Why did you buzz then? -E=MC2? -Too easy, isn't it? No, you may not confer either! | 0:34:51 | 0:34:57 | |
-"Television, Kearney". -Eh, rose window? -Did he tell you that? -No. -OK, I'll accept it then. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
He can be occasionally rather contemptuous. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
I want to be as kind to you as I possibly can, New Hall, but it's a terrible score. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:09 | |
When someone gets a century hopelessly wrong he's the first to be extremely screwy faced about it. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:15 | |
-No. -It always rather amuses me when he baits the students for not knowing | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
the answer to a question, because I always think, at 18, Jeremy, did you know that? | 0:35:19 | 0:35:23 | |
I can't imagine how clever it was of them to have found | 0:35:23 | 0:35:28 | |
-the only other Bamber Gascoigne, but a Bamber Gascoigne with attitude. -Yes, I'll accept that. Just about. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:36 | |
I would like a doctor like Jeremy Paxman. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:38 | |
I would like a doctor who doesn't flannel. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:41 | |
And he doesn't. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:43 | |
Straight to the point. What's the answer? Bang! | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
Knowing the answer always helps if you want to win, as does a bit of enthusiasm. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:50 | |
I like students. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:52 | |
I like what they know. I'm amazed by what they know and also, sometimes, what they don't know. | 0:35:52 | 0:35:58 | |
I love their eagerness. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
However, in the 1997 series the students at New Hall, Cambridge | 0:36:04 | 0:36:09 | |
seemed less than eager to represent their college on the show. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
Someone put a poster up in New Hall to get together a University Challenge team. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
And I think about five people turned up. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
So it wasn't actually all that difficult to get a team together. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
-Yeah. -You had to have four and one reserve. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:25 | |
I don't think I even actually turned up to the pub quiz. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:28 | |
I can't really remember that bit. I remember in the bar later. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
Hello, welcome to another first round match of University Challenge, | 0:36:31 | 0:36:34 | |
and more reassurance that the taxpayers' money isn't being wasted on education, we hope. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:40 | |
Several million taxpayers were watching. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
Fingers were on buzzers, the nation expected and then... | 0:36:43 | 0:36:47 | |
"Goodness had nothing to do with it", published in 19... | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
-"New Hall, Coleman". -Sorry, forgot. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:52 | |
Bad luck, you lose five. The term "glorious revolution" | 0:36:52 | 0:36:55 | |
is used to describe the events which placed which king on the British throne? | 0:36:55 | 0:36:58 | |
-Charles II? -Charles II? No. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
-We don't know. -You've hopped around every century except the right one. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:03 | |
It's William III. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:05 | |
Initially it was like watching some terrible road accident in slow motion. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:12 | |
Every time they tried to buzz in they got it wrong. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
-"New Hall, Shaw". -Miller. -No. -"New Hall, Shaw". | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
-Heaven. -No. -"New Hall, Shaw". -Napkin. -No, you lose five points. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:23 | |
You saw him staring at you and he's like, come on girls! | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
And you're like, oh no, I'm letting him down! | 0:37:26 | 0:37:29 | |
The one good thing is we don't get the same treatment as the politicians. | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
He doesn't carry on asking the question until he gets an answer he likes. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
-That's true. -I felt terribly, terribly sorry for them and started sort of willing them on. | 0:37:35 | 0:37:43 | |
But you can't fake it. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:45 | |
The thing has to be like Caesar's wife, it has to be unimpeachable. | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
You can't fix it. It has to be the best team winning. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:51 | |
-"New Hall, Shaw". -Christopher Dean. -Christopher Dean, hooray! | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
It takes you up to a magnificent minus five. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
It was difficult, because once you get to that stage you know you're going to lose. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
Do you lose quietly, calmly, or do we have that final, last ditch effort of get every | 0:38:04 | 0:38:09 | |
piece of knowledge that may still be in your brain and spurt it out? | 0:38:09 | 0:38:13 | |
Some teams do take it seriously. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:16 | |
Too seriously, I would say. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:18 | |
But the majority, the nicest teams, the best teams, are the ones who, they obviously want to do well, | 0:38:18 | 0:38:24 | |
but who realise, it's only a bloody game. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:26 | |
Which two-word popular name is affectionately applied to the flag of the USA? | 0:38:26 | 0:38:30 | |
Stars and stripes. | 0:38:30 | 0:38:33 | |
-Two-word. -Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam. -Uncle Sam, no, I'm afraid not. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
It's Old Glory. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:37 | |
By that stage me and certainly Abbey were sat there going, I'm not saying anything more now, that's it. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:45 | |
Rosie valiantly just carrying on. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
-I think I'm good at lost causes. -Yeah. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:50 | |
What was the title of the piece by Elgar to which AC Benson set the words of Land of Hope and Glory? | 0:38:50 | 0:38:55 | |
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4. | 0:38:55 | 0:38:58 | |
-Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4. -I'll take it. I think it was No. 1, but Pomp and Circumstance is right. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:03 | |
It brings you to a majestic zero. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:06 | |
Getting a big cheer when you get back to nought is... | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
isn't a good sign. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
And as the thing went on, | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
one began to realise that | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
they weren't going to pull anything out of the fire. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:20 | |
Don't know. | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
Don't give up, please. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:24 | |
They scrambled back to, what was it, 35 or something? | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
I mean, I remember it. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
I thought, 35 is the most awful score I've ever seen on this show. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:35 | |
Don't be deterred from buzzing in, New Hall, it's the best way back. | 0:39:35 | 0:39:38 | |
It helps if you've got the right answer, but just keep on doing it. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:41 | |
And then I started thinking, actually in a way | 0:39:41 | 0:39:45 | |
it's quite distinguished really to have achieved such an abysmal score. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
I suppose what you want from your appearance on University Challenge | 0:39:52 | 0:39:56 | |
is a nation kind of open mouthed with awe at your extraordinary knowledge and insight and intellect. | 0:39:56 | 0:40:03 | |
But the reality, I think, is a nation of people going, "I can't believe he didn't know that." | 0:40:03 | 0:40:08 | |
The nicknames cheesemongers, cherrypickers, Bob's own, the emperor's chambermaids | 0:40:08 | 0:40:13 | |
and the immortals are or have been used for which group of men? | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
-"UMIST, Bright." -Homosexuals? | 0:40:17 | 0:40:19 | |
No. No, they're regiments in the British Army! | 0:40:19 | 0:40:22 | |
They'll be very upset with you, UMIST. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
Getting the wrong answer can often prove to be extremely embarrassing. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:30 | |
Thumer, toucher, long man, lechman and little man are old and middle | 0:40:30 | 0:40:36 | |
-English names for which parts of the human body? -"King's, Scoffing." | 0:40:36 | 0:40:41 | |
-Penis. -No. | 0:40:41 | 0:40:43 | |
-"Keeble, Dobie." -Fingers? | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
Fingers is correct, yes. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:47 | |
How many penises do they teach you we have nowadays? | 0:40:49 | 0:40:55 | |
In April 2003 the professionals spin-off series | 0:40:55 | 0:40:58 | |
allowed more mature minds to face their own starter for 10. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:03 | |
Hello. Worlds collide tonight, commerce | 0:41:03 | 0:41:06 | |
against the arts, as the voice of British business takes on one of the world's leading opera houses. | 0:41:06 | 0:41:11 | |
Having gone to university in the early '90s, | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
the show wasn't on television so I didn't have the chance. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
So, the professionals series was the perfect opportunity to make amends for that. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:23 | |
-"Royal Opera House, Cann." -Is it Seneca? | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
-It is, yes. -"Royal Opera House, Cann." | 0:41:27 | 0:41:29 | |
-Kurt Weill. -That's right. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:31 | |
"Royal Opera House, Cann." | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
The Emperor Karl of Austria. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:35 | |
That is correct, yes. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
We got off to a very good start and we were well ahead for most of the match. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:43 | |
But towards the end the CBI, who we were playing, | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
answered a sequence of questions, plus the bonuses, and they caught up | 0:41:46 | 0:41:51 | |
so that when the gong sounded at the end of the match, Jeremy announced that it was a dead heat. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:56 | |
That's the gong. We have an absolute dead heat, 100 points apiece. | 0:41:56 | 0:42:00 | |
So there would now be a tie break. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:03 | |
Right, what happens now, it's the first one to answer a starter question correctly. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:09 | |
But beware, because if you buzz in incorrectly you lose five points and the other team | 0:42:09 | 0:42:15 | |
automatically wins without even having to answer the question. So here we go, 10 points for this. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
-Grockles is a word used mainly in Devon to refer to... -"Royal Opera House, Cann". | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
I had buzzed in absolutely overjoyed that I had got the right answer | 0:42:23 | 0:42:28 | |
and was going to win the match single handed. Tourists. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
No, I'm afraid you lose five points. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:33 | |
Oh no! | 0:42:33 | 0:42:36 | |
My insides just dissolved when I realised that the question | 0:42:36 | 0:42:42 | |
was changing track and that I'd got the wrong answer. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
Rather than single handedly winning the match, I had single handedly lost it. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:50 | |
It does refer to tourists. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
But I wanted the equivalent term used in Cornwall, | 0:42:52 | 0:42:57 | |
which is emits. So, I'm afraid that without the CBI even having to answer it, I'm afraid you've lost. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:02 | |
Coming from an area of Devon reasonably close to Cornwall, | 0:43:02 | 0:43:05 | |
we use the Cornish equivalent "emits" almost interchangeably with "grockles". | 0:43:05 | 0:43:10 | |
So, I could have answered it correctly if I had waited. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:14 | |
Although it is a bit of fun, | 0:43:14 | 0:43:17 | |
in the heat of the moment you do take things very seriously. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:22 | |
-And I was just full of despair in that one moment. -Bad luck, Opera House. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:28 | |
It was a very, very easy mistake to make. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:31 | |
But it cost you the contest, I'm afraid. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
Thank you very much for taking part. CBI, well done. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:35 | |
Did you know the answer to the last question? | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
To tell the truth, I pressed, he beat me and I was going to say tourist as well. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
Ah well, honours are shared then. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
The producer, I think, came up to me and said, "Ah, that's great television!" | 0:43:45 | 0:43:49 | |
And there I was in the pit of misery. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
And that's not wholly what I wanted to hear. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:56 | |
Some famous faces now got the chance to display their great knowledge. | 0:43:56 | 0:44:01 | |
Welcome to another first round match in our search for the UK's brainiest institution. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:06 | |
I got, I think it was a call from the producer saying, "We're going to do a sort of grown up version of | 0:44:06 | 0:44:12 | |
"University Challenge with professional teams, and would Private Eye like to put a team in?" | 0:44:12 | 0:44:17 | |
We all had to admit we were really keen to appear. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
It was really like feeling you were inside a television set. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:24 | |
Unlike any other programme I've been on, | 0:44:24 | 0:44:26 | |
you were properly on the television if you were on University Challenge. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:30 | |
Hello, I'm Martha Kearney and I'm the Political Editor of Newsnight. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
It's a programme I enjoy watching. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
It has a certain rapid-fire pace about it, | 0:44:36 | 0:44:41 | |
unlike most television programmes where one is shouting, "Get on with it", at the screen. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:47 | |
Sorry. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:52 | |
It seemed harmless fun. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:55 | |
So I said yes. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:56 | |
If anyone said to you it was a jolly day out, I think they're probably lying. | 0:44:56 | 0:45:01 | |
On a scale of 1 to 10 of how competitive, we were about 10. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:06 | |
When I saw saw these famous numbskulls in the other team, | 0:45:06 | 0:45:11 | |
much more famous than any of the arts people, | 0:45:11 | 0:45:17 | |
of course we felt competitive. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:20 | |
About halfway through when it looked as though we were | 0:45:20 | 0:45:22 | |
going to be beaten by Debretts, I thought, "I can't bear it. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:25 | |
"I just can't bear it." | 0:45:25 | 0:45:27 | |
-Um, it dissolves things. -Specifically? | 0:45:30 | 0:45:33 | |
Stuff. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:35 | |
-Lead. -No, completely wrong. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
Your finger on the buzzer. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:41 | |
It's an iconic moment. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:43 | |
You know if you get it wrong, you interrupt | 0:45:43 | 0:45:47 | |
there's penalty points and you feel the responsibility for the whole team. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
So the first time you do it, your heart is really, really beating. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
Television, Kearney. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:56 | |
Michael Howard and Britney Spears. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
Correct, yes. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:00 | |
When we appeared on the show, both Francis and Marcus and I agreed | 0:46:00 | 0:46:05 | |
it was probably the most nervous we'd been about doing anything | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
in our whole media careers, and I've done a fair amount of television, | 0:46:08 | 0:46:12 | |
but going on University Challenge and looking a complete idiot, which is perfectly possible, | 0:46:12 | 0:46:18 | |
was a very scary thought. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:19 | |
I was terrified that I wouldn't get something right about modern politics. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:23 | |
I remember the very long drive up to Manchester. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:26 | |
The thing I swotted up on was every single member of the Cabinet. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
The Shadow Cabinet and things I sort of knew but just imagined | 0:46:29 | 0:46:33 | |
under the lights not knowing who the shadow home secretary was. | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
-That would be very humiliating. -Here's another starter question. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
Nicknamed Taximan for his habit of driving an old London cab, which MP was elected President... | 0:46:39 | 0:46:46 | |
-Television Kearney. -Simon Hughes. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:48 | |
I should hope so too, yes. | 0:46:48 | 0:46:51 | |
Pleasure comes when something which is | 0:46:51 | 0:46:55 | |
obscure, and as the question is rolling out, you really have no idea what the answer is, as it comes | 0:46:55 | 0:47:02 | |
to the end they've just thrown in some tiny clue. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:06 | |
A further inspiration to De Cooper town was a visit to the Olympic Games held annually since 1849 | 0:47:06 | 0:47:12 | |
in which Shropshire town situated to the north east of a limestone ridge that bears the same name? | 0:47:12 | 0:47:16 | |
I think... | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
What's that ridge called? | 0:47:22 | 0:47:23 | |
It's... | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
- Wenlock. - Wenlock. | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
It is, Much Wenlock is right. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:29 | |
It's like playing tennis. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:31 | |
You achieve a return that you didn't think you are capable of. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:35 | |
Afterwards, you had people coming up going, "I'm very surprised | 0:47:35 | 0:47:39 | |
"that you didn't know the answer to such and such." | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
-Television, Kearney. -The Go-between. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
-No. -You think, "Oh, yes, I am sorry, I should have known that." | 0:47:45 | 0:47:50 | |
It was fun. I'd willingly do it again. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:54 | |
From humble beginnings in Manchester to a star | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
of the silver screen, University Challenge has now been immortalised in the film Starter For Ten. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:07 | |
The idea for Starter For Ten came from just sitting on the sofa, watching the show | 0:48:07 | 0:48:14 | |
and idly speculating about the relationship between the team members. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:19 | |
When I was given the film script which featured University Challenge | 0:48:19 | 0:48:22 | |
as the climax of the movie, I thought it would be a fantastic | 0:48:22 | 0:48:25 | |
opportunity to give University Challenge the Hollywood treatment and have a lot of fun with it. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:30 | |
I've got an announcement to make. | 0:48:30 | 0:48:32 | |
What's that then? | 0:48:32 | 0:48:35 | |
- It's just something that happened last term. - Oh, God, Brian. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:39 | |
- Mum, don't worry, it's a good thing. - Tell me then. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
I'm going to be on University Challenge. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
What? That thing on the telly? | 0:48:49 | 0:48:51 | |
Yeah. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:53 | |
Congratulations, Brian, that's brilliant news. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
Cheers. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:57 | |
Oh, God, what a relief. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
Why? | 0:48:59 | 0:49:01 | |
To be honest, Brian, I thought you are going to say you were gay. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:05 | |
I am James McAvoy and I am Brian Jackson in Starter For Ten. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:13 | |
He's 18 years-old, even though I'm not, and he has | 0:49:13 | 0:49:18 | |
just started university and it's the biggest thing in his life because all he ever wanted to do was learn. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:24 | |
In a weird way, kind of show off the fact he has learnt so much, | 0:49:24 | 0:49:31 | |
so a game show like University Challenge is the perfect medium. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:37 | |
- Jackson, Bristol. - Electro-luminescence. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
Candour luminescence. | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
Luminescence? | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
Phosphorescence? | 0:49:50 | 0:49:51 | |
Come on. | 0:49:53 | 0:49:55 | |
- Incandescence. - All correct. Names of... | 0:49:55 | 0:49:57 | |
I play Patrick Watts, the captain of the Bristol University Challenge team. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:04 | |
-It's a form or fungal infection. -Is the correct answer. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:07 | |
And I think, fundamentally what appeals to him about University | 0:50:07 | 0:50:12 | |
Challenge is the idea of controlled knowledge and being able to show it off in a very identifiable way. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:19 | |
In order to qualify you'll need to answer 30 questions in 30 minutes | 0:50:19 | 0:50:22 | |
and the top three scores join me, the captain, in this year's team. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:28 | |
I have some lively little questions, so I think you're in for a pretty good time. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:31 | |
But it is against the clock so, people, if you're ready, let's quiz! | 0:50:31 | 0:50:37 | |
When it came to putting University Challenge on the movie screen, one of | 0:50:37 | 0:50:43 | |
the biggest challenges was who was going to play Bamber Gascoigne? | 0:50:43 | 0:50:46 | |
It was a very intriguing idea and then immediately quite daunting because of his iconic status. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:52 | |
There still may be time to catch up. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:54 | |
Here's a starter question for ten. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:56 | |
Everybody has an idea | 0:50:56 | 0:50:58 | |
of how he speaks and his whole persona based on their childhood memories, | 0:50:58 | 0:51:04 | |
so it immediately went from being a, | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
"Whoopee," idea to, "Oh, God, how am I going to do this?" | 0:51:07 | 0:51:12 | |
The Oresteia by Aeschylus. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:14 | |
- Correct. - Euclidian algorithm. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:16 | |
-The Euclidian algorithm? -Correct. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
Honni soit qui mal y pense? | 0:51:19 | 0:51:21 | |
Correct answer. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:23 | |
I remember sitting in the chair in the wig and the glasses and being | 0:51:23 | 0:51:27 | |
quite frightened by how much I looked like him. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:30 | |
It just sort of seems to fit once you're in front of that incredibly green, | 0:51:30 | 0:51:35 | |
grim set. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
Everything seems to slot into place. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
I could taste Sunday dinner again from being on the set, it reminded me of when I used to watch it. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:46 | |
It was always very important for us to get the actual show right. | 0:51:46 | 0:51:50 | |
Right from the beginning we consulted with the current production team so that | 0:51:50 | 0:51:55 | |
they read all our questions and were extremely helpful, so | 0:51:55 | 0:51:58 | |
they would come back to us and say, "Actually, that's a little bit easy for a starter question." | 0:51:58 | 0:52:03 | |
Derived from the Greek words for wing and finger, what is the genus...? | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
-Jackson, Bristol. -Pterodactyl. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:09 | |
-Is correct. -Down to details like making sure we had the captain sitting third from the left. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:15 | |
-Everything had to be right, really. -Correct. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:18 | |
It's a real eye-opener being on the panel and in front of the cameras as opposed to watching it at home. | 0:52:18 | 0:52:24 | |
You really get a sense of how pressured you must feel. | 0:52:24 | 0:52:28 | |
We're stupid actors with the right answers to say or get wrong. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:31 | |
There's a real studio pressure - bright lights, the audience, the expectation. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:35 | |
I remember by a bizarre coincidence, just around the back of the set there was a white cat, | 0:52:35 | 0:52:43 | |
a toy cat. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:46 | |
I immediately got it and just sat there like that, stroking it, because | 0:52:46 | 0:52:49 | |
I felt I was like master of all I surveyed. | 0:52:49 | 0:52:53 | |
It's not a usual subject for a feature film. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
There's no tradition of college movies in the UK. | 0:52:56 | 0:53:00 | |
I think it's because generally speaking people dislike | 0:53:00 | 0:53:04 | |
students, especially once you stop being a student you develop a kind of, "Oh, bloody students!" attitude. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:10 | |
So I never imagined it | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
as a feature film. But now I watch it, I'm incredibly proud of it. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:18 | |
Let's quiz. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:20 | |
# Looking back on my life you know that all I see are things I could have changed, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:26 | |
# I should have done... # | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
Since 1962, University Challenge has charted the fortunes of the student. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:34 | |
From grant to debt, from demos to raves, from sociology to media studies, | 0:53:34 | 0:53:39 | |
all have been united by a starter for ten. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
Students in those days, I know it's looking back through pink | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
coloured spectacles, but I think we were more politically engaged. | 0:53:48 | 0:53:52 | |
It was a brave new world for us. | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
For students today, university is taken for granted. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:59 | |
Of course it wasn't. None of my family had ever been to university. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:02 | |
My parents had virtually no idea what a university was or what I did there. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:08 | |
And they're just so sweet these days, just poppety. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:11 | |
They're not angry about politics, which is maybe a pity, maybe they should be. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
What strikes me is that in the '80s, | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
probably the early '90s as well, people were less confident. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
Now, you get someone going on University Challenge, | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
they're all sitting like this. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." | 0:54:29 | 0:54:31 | |
Hi, I'm Adam McCartney from Hook in Hampshire and I'm reading for a Masters in Scriptwriting. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:36 | |
Whereas in the '85 final, it was very much, "I'm Brian Jackson and I'm | 0:54:36 | 0:54:43 | |
"from Gloucestershire and I'm reading Engineering." | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
Alan Frith from Watford studying History. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
They were mortified to be on television, | 0:54:50 | 0:54:53 | |
which is brilliant because we live in a different age now. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:55 | |
In the Bamber Gascoigne years, part of its pleasure and charm | 0:54:55 | 0:55:00 | |
was a fusty academic image. | 0:55:00 | 0:55:03 | |
Alexander Fyjis-Walker from Notting Hill reading English. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:06 | |
Steve Cooter from Brighton in Sussex reading Interdisciplinary Human Studies. | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
And now it seems like that | 0:55:12 | 0:55:15 | |
there's no stigma attached to appearing on University Challenge. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
Weirdly, like footballers, students are suddenly really beautiful. When did that happen? | 0:55:19 | 0:55:25 | |
Now in its 40s and the show is a strong as ever. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:30 | |
Today's contestants might be tomorrow's world leaders. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:33 | |
And through the decades, the format has remained the same. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
Untouched by fashion, a chance for each generation to test itself against the last... | 0:55:37 | 0:55:42 | |
and the next. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:44 | |
No, not in my hair. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:47 | |
It's very simple, it's very fair, everybody's under the same pressure, | 0:55:47 | 0:55:53 | |
and it's a test of knowledge | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
without any violence. | 0:55:56 | 0:55:58 | |
There was quite a bit of excitement at my hall. | 0:56:00 | 0:56:02 | |
Lots of people heard about it. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:04 | |
Since the return of University Challenge, Britain has exploded with a million quiz nights. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:10 | |
It's become a rather common thing for people to be a member of a quiz team. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:14 | |
Somehow, University Challenge managed to avoid its questions being trivia questions. | 0:56:14 | 0:56:18 | |
They somehow come from a place that is more related still to the idea of learning. That's a very good thing. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:24 | |
Big, big welcome for Oxford! | 0:56:24 | 0:56:28 | |
Although some of the questions and answers may still be highly specialised and not | 0:56:33 | 0:56:37 | |
relate to day-to-day living, it's far more important to remember who was president of Uganda | 0:56:37 | 0:56:43 | |
in the '70s, for example, | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
than Jade's bra size or how old is Hugh Grant? | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
Welcome for Manchester University! | 0:56:50 | 0:56:52 | |
It's against the zeitgeist which is always a good idea. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:59 | |
I think it's still there as an outpost of cleverness that celebrates people knowing things. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:05 | |
Sometimes as a country, we're quite anti-intellectual. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:10 | |
I think University Challenge celebrates intelligence in a way that very few programmes do. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:16 | |
It's an achievement to know so much, to have such an eclectic range of knowledge. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:22 | |
I think it's probably that that makes it so special. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
If you could manage to get a few amongst all that stuff about electro | 0:57:25 | 0:57:30 | |
magnets and stuff, you really feel proud of yourself. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:34 | |
There are very few real groupings of people that have both brilliance and | 0:57:34 | 0:57:40 | |
an aggressive attitude to each other to compare to university students. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
You know what automatically you're going to get good people. | 0:57:43 | 0:57:47 | |
You've got all the ingredients of a really good contest. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:50 | |
The fact that so often it can be very close makes it irresistible. | 0:57:50 | 0:57:56 | |
It is to show to young people that the sort of people who go to university | 0:57:58 | 0:58:05 | |
are no different to them. | 0:58:05 | 0:58:07 | |
It's rather wonderful to see them when they do well and they know amazing things. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:12 | |
That's the fascination of it. | 0:58:12 | 0:58:14 | |
-It's about learning. -Counting to titles. | 0:58:14 | 0:58:18 | |
Going to titles in five, four, three, two, one. | 0:58:18 | 0:58:22 | |
-Bye! -Goodbye. -Nazdar! | 0:58:26 | 0:58:29 | |
Goodbye! | 0:58:29 | 0:58:30 | |
-Bye! -Goodbye. | 0:58:31 | 0:58:33 | |
Goodbye. | 0:58:33 | 0:58:34 | |
-Goodbye. -Bye-bye. | 0:58:35 | 0:58:37 | |
-Goodbye. -Goodbye. -Goodbye. | 0:58:37 | 0:58:40 | |
Goodbye. | 0:58:40 | 0:58:42 | |
Bye. | 0:58:42 | 0:58:44 | |
-Good night. -Goodbye. | 0:58:45 | 0:58:47 | |
And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye. | 0:58:47 | 0:58:50 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006 | 0:58:50 | 0:58:53 |