University Challenge
| University Challenge | |
|---|---|
| Presented by | Bamber Gascoigne (1962 – 1987) Jeremy Paxman (1994 – Present) |
| Narrated by | Roger Tilling |
| Country of origin |  United Kingdom |
| Production | |
| Producer | Granada Television |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 1962 – 1987 1994 – Present |
| Related | |
| College Bowl | |
University Challenge is a long-running British television quiz show, licensed and produced by Granada Television. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC TV from 1959 to 1970. College Bowl is credited in the end title.
History
At its inception in 1961 it was hosted by Bamber Gascoigne. When audience figures began to fall, partly thanks to less auspicious broadcast slots, changes were made to the long-standing format of the programme: initial games were staged over two legs, the second leg involving contestants selecting questions from specific categories (eg sport, literature, science).
This added complexity did nothing to halt declining viewer figures, and it was taken off the air in 1987. It was eventually revived in 1994 by the BBC (although still produced by Granada), using the original format (with minor differences) and presented by Jeremy Paxman.
The original announcer was Jim Pope, who stayed with the programme from 1963 until his death in 2001. Since then, the announcer has been Roger Tilling.
The 2006 movie Starter for Ten depicts a university team in the mid-1980s.
Format
The current tournament format used for a series is that of a direct knockout tournament starting with 28 teams. The 14 first round winners progress directly to the last 16. Two matches, involving the four highest scoring losing teams from the first round whose losing scores often exceeded winning scores in other first round matches, fill the remaining places in the last 16.
Teams consist of four members and represent either a single university or a college of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Wales or London.
"Starter" questions are answered individually "on the buzzer" without conferring, and are worth 10 points. The team answering a starter correctly gets a set of "bonus" questions worth a potential 15 points, over which they can confer. Sets of bonus questions are thematically linked, although they rarely share a connection with the preceding starter question. Generally there are three separate bonus questions worth five points each, but occasionally a bonus will require the enumeration of a given list with 5, 10 or 15 points given for correctly giving a certain number of items from the list (e.g., "there are six fundamental SI units. Give four for 5 points, 5 for 10 points or all 6 for 15 points"). An incorrect interruption of a starter results in a five point penalty.
In the course of a game there are two "picture rounds" (occurring roughly one quarter and three quarters of the way through) and one "music round" (at the halfway point), where the subsequent bonuses are connected thematically to the starter; if a picture or music starter is not correctly answered, the accompanying bonus questions are held back until a normal starter is correctly answered.
The pace of questioning gradually increases through the show, becoming almost frantic in the last minute or so before the "gong" which signals the end of the game. In the event of a tied score at the sound of the gong, a "sudden death" question is asked, the first team to answer correctly being deemed the winner; this is repeated until one or other of the teams answer correctly, or a team loses by giving an incorrect interruption.
While the starter questions are being read out, the teams are shown on screen one above the other by means of a split-screen effect. When a player buzzes in, the shot zooms in to that player, accompanied by a voice-over identifying the player by team and surname, for example "Nottingham, Smith". The voiceovers are performed live in the studio by the show's announcer and become noticeably more energetic towards the end of the programme.
Controversy
The fact that the Oxbridge universities can enter each of their colleges as a separate team was the ostensible inspiration for a bizarre 1975 protest. A team from the University of Manchester (which included David Aaronovitch) who were appearing on the show answered every question "Che Guevara", "Marx", "Trotsky" or "Lenin", possibly in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable. It did however get broadcast, although only portions of the episode still exist in the archives of Granada TV.
The University of Essex is the only institution to have been banned from the show. They allegedly "trashed" the set after an appearance. [citation needed]
Although the show has since its revival in 1994 featured a number of very high-standard teams with members of a student age, one trend has been an increasing number of teams which have featured mature students, who are thought to have the advantage of a greater breadth of general knowledge. The Open University won the 1999 series with a team whose age averaged 46, that included three of the four team members were former Brain of Britain and Mastermind finalists or otherwise professional quiz show contestants, whom had only joined the OU specifically in order to appear on the show. In the quarter-final they beat a slightly younger team from postgraduate college Birkbeck, University of London by only one question. The 2003 final was contested between two teams of mature students, with Birkbeck, University of London defeating Cranfield University. Host Jeremy Paxman openly criticised the OU team as not being in the spirit of the competition [1]
Famous Contestants
- David Aaronovitch - University of Manchester, 1975
- Ian Brackenbury Channell (The Wizard of New Zealand)
- Sebastian Faulks - Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1972
- Julian Fellowes - 1969
- Stephen Fry - Queens' College, Cambridge, 1980
- Clive James
- David Lidington - Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 1978
- Alistair Little
- Miriam Margolyes - Newnham College, Cambridge, 1963
- David Mellor
- Charles Moore
- Malcolm Rifkind - University of Edinburgh, 1967
- John Simpson - Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1964
- June Tabor - St Hugh's College, Oxford, 1968
Spin-off shows
The producers of the programme have taken the more recent inclusion of mature students to its logical conclusion by making two series without any student participants: University Challenge Reunited (2002) brought former teams back together, while University Challenge: The Professionals (from 2003) matched occupational groups such as civil servants, architects and doctors against each other. In 2003, the former was won by the 1979 team from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, the latter by a team from the Inland Revenue. The 2004 Professionals series was won by the British Library, and the 2005 series by the Privy Council Office. In 2006, Professionals was won by staff of the Bodleian Library of Oxford.
Sixth Form Challenge, hosted by Chris Kelly, appeared briefly in 1965-7.
University Challenge ran in New Zealand for 14 seasons, from 1976 until 1989, with international series held between the previous years' British and New Zealand champions in both 1986 and 1987.
University Challenge India started in summer 2003, with the season culminating in the finals of March 2004 where Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE), Bombay, beat Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. The 2004-05 season finale saw a team of undergraduate engineering students from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT), Delhi beat a team of management students from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kozhikode.The Indian winners of the 2003-04 season went on to beat the finalists from the UK show, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. UC India is produced by BBC World India, and Synergy communications, co-owned by Siddhartha Basu, who also hosts the show.
The show has seen numerous specials, including those for specific professions and celebrity editions, such as Universe Challenge, where the cast of Red Dwarf challenged a team of their "ultimate fans" to celebrate Red Dwarf's 10th Anniversary on the air. The cast was Chris Barrie (captain), Danny John-Jules, Robert Llewellyn, Chloe Annett and Craig Charles. The cast, who at times seemed amazed at the fans' knowledge, lost.
NB: Since the original show was "College Bowl" in the United States, technically University Challenge is itself a spin-off.
Winners
Original series
| Year | University/College |
|---|---|
| 1963 | Leicester |
| 1965 | New College, Oxford |
| 1966 | Oriel College, Oxford |
| 1967 | Sussex |
| 1968 | Keele |
| 1969 | Sussex |
| 1970 | Churchill College, Cambridge |
| 1971 | Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge |
| 1972 | University College, Oxford |
| 1973 | Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge |
| 1974 | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| 1975 | Keble College, Oxford |
| 1976 | University College, Oxford |
| 1977 | Durham |
| 1978 | Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge |
| 1979 | Bradford |
| 1980 | Merton College, Oxford |
| 1981 | Queen's University of Belfast |
| 1982 | St. Andrews |
| 1983 | Dundee |
| 1984 | The Open University |
| 1985 | Jesus College, Oxford |
| 1986 | Keble College, Oxford |
New series
Lowest scores
The lowest score during a regular series was by New Hall, Cambridge - their meagre 35 points were scraped together in 1997, "beating" a 40 point low previously held by Birkbeck, University of London. The University of Bradford also scored 35 in 2004, as did the Royal Naval College in the 2003 Professionals series.
However, the all-time low for the Paxman era was also achieved in the 2003 Professionals series, when the Members of Parliament team scored only 25.
In 2006, Robinson College, Cambridge scored 40 points. Other teams to score only 40 have included Oxford Brookes University (1998); University of St Andrews (2001 and 2004); Keele University (2002) and Queen's University Belfast (2005).
Specials
| Year | Special Event | Winners | Runners Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | International best of three series | Great Britain (Jesus College, Oxford, 1985) | New Zealand (University of Auckland, 1985) |
| 1987 | International best of three series | Great Britain (Keble College, Oxford, 1986) | New Zealand (University of Otago, 1986) |
| 1993 | Celebrity match | Celebrity Past Contestants (John Simpson, Charles Moore, Stephen Fry, Alastair Little) | Keble College, Oxford, 1987 |
| 1997 | College Bowl Challenge | University of Michigan | Imperial College London, 1996 |
| 1998 | College Bowl Challenge | USA | UK |
| 1998 | Mastermind Challenge | Magdalen College, Oxford, 1997 | Imperial College London, 1996 |
| 1998 | Universe Challenge | Red Dwarf Fans: (Darryl Ball, Kaley Nichols, Steve Rogers [Chairman of the Official Red Dwarf Fan Club], Pip Swallow, Sharon Burnett [Co-author of The Red Dwarf Quiz Book]) | Red Dwarf Cast: (Robert Llewellyn, Danny John-Jules, Chris Barrie, Chloë Annett, Craig Charles) |
| 1999 | Journalists Special | Tabloids | Broadsheets |
| 1999 | Challenge | Magdalen College, Oxford, 1998 | Leicester, 1963 |
| 2002 | University Challenge: Reunited | Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 1979 | Keele, 1968 |
| 2003 | University Challenge: The Professionals | The Inland Revenue | Royal Meteorological Society |
| 2003 | Comic Relief match | The Townies: (Jeremy Beadle, Danny Baker, Johnny Vaughan, Gina Yashere) | The Gownies: (David Baddiel, Frank Skinner, Stephen Fry, Clive Anderson) |
| 2004 | International "Grand Final": UK vs India | Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE), Mumbai: (Nirad Inamdar, Bharat Jayakumar, Nishad Manerikar, Shrijit Plappally) | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge: (Laura Ashe, Darren Khodaverdi, Lameen Souag, Edward Wallace) |
| 2004 | University Challenge: The Professionals | British Library | Oxford University Press |
| 2004 | Christmas Special 1 | Television (Monty Don, Martha Kearney, Andrew Neil, Clare Balding) | Radio (Henry Blofeld, Jenni Murray, Ned Sherrin, Roger Bolton) |
| Christmas Special 2 | Critics (Waldemar Januszczak, Russell Davies, Brian Sewell, Andrew Graham-Dixon) | Theatre | |
| Christmas Specials: Final | Critics | Television | |
| 2005 | Comic Relief 2005 Match | The South (Sarah Alexander, Hugh Grant, Stephen Fry, Omid Djalili) | The North (Colin Murray, John Thomson, Armando Iannucci, Neil Morrissey) |
| 2005 | University Challenge: The Professionals | Privy Council Office | Romantic Novelists' Association |
| 2006 | University Challenge: The Professionals | Bodleian Library | Royal Statistical Society |
University Challenge in popular culture
- David Nicholls's novel Starter for Ten is based around one student's part in a University Challenge team whilst at the University of Bristol (based on Nicholls' own alma mater), The title is of course taken from the programme's catchphrase. The novel has been adapted into a film of the same name, released in 2006 (November 10 in the UK).
- In 1984, an episode of The Young Ones, entitled "Bambi", centred around a spoof of University Challenge with a match between the fictitious teams of Scumbag College and Footlights College, Oxbridge.
- The song 'My Perfect Cousin' by The Undertones contains the couplet "He thinks that I'm a cabbage / 'Cos I hate University Challenge." It appears on the album Hypnotised.
- A quiz themed around BBC science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, broadcast in 1998, was entitled Universe Challenge. It opened as if it were a regular episode, but with Chris Barrie imitating Jeremy Paxman. Bamber comes from behind with a blaster gun and blows him out of the chair, so he can host. This was Bamber Gascoigne's last appearance (to date) as host.
- In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, University Challenge was placed 34th.
- The ending of the programme is signified with Jeremy Paxman saying "It's goodbye from (name of losing team, who wave and say goodbye), it's goodbye from (winning team, likewise), and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye!"