I headed down to the very impressive Media City complex in Salford on the Friday morning with a stay in the on-site Holiday Inn to look forward to. The call time was 5pm and after a short time waiting around in the lobby we were taken to the studio for recording. I say studio, the Salford episodes were recorded in a hall usually used for the BBC Philharmonic orchestra. Walking to the studio my first little shock was seeing the queue to get into the recording as an audience member! A little intimidating.
After being given the brief run down, we set off on a rehearsal game but with time running on, and a mix up with security who were double booked (with the Jeremy Kyle Show of all things), I had to carry my rehearsal out in front of the audience. For one reason or another, I was very nervous. This was the set up (see below) with the audience of about maybe 250-300 sitting from where the picture was taken.
Despite progressing well in all aspects of quizzing, evidence by my performances in GP's as of late, I am developing a nasty habit of freezing and getting overly nervous whenever there is an audience of any sort. It happened earlier in the year at the York vs Sunderland head to head which was on a stage and has happened in all my TV/Radio recordings to date.
The rehearsal was simply 2-3 rounds of practice questions and as far as I recall, I actually managed to win the rehearsal which I thought would put me at ease but as soon as the music kicked in so did my nerves. The Livingstone question was a total mind-fart and from then on in I was on the backfoot. I was quizzing against some strong players and the standard, apart from me was very high!
The only question I was a little disappointed not to get was Livingstone...the others I genuinely didn't know. I certainly didn't expect Rachael to pass over Vectis for my only bonus of the day. I was well beaten and I knew going in I was running before I could walk so to speak.
But the whole experience was fantastic, enjoyable and out of the three TV/Radio shows I have now done...this was probably the one I enjoyed most!
I would recommend to anyone giving it a try and I look forward to returning in 5 years!
Well done anyway, Dan. I've met lots of players in the last 30 years or so who reckon that they're good players, but would never dream of trying Brain of Britain. I'm glad that you enjoyed the experience anyway - I like radio very much as well, it's somehow all a little less fraught and a little more civilised in my experience.
ReplyDeleteGive it a few years - I'm not sure how long you have to wait now - but as a rough guide Barry was in the final in 2008 before coming back to win earlier this year - so maybe 5 years is reasonable - and then give it another go.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seemed like you kept getting the hardest questions. You should feel a sense of accomplishment for getting two right.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely got harder questions. It was an interesting experience listening to the podcast with, for the first time, a vested interest in the result. With other episodes I haven't really paid too much attention to which players got which questions, or even the scores. I hadn't fully appreciated just how significant the luck of the draw is in BOB, far more so than in other quizzes. Good on you for having a go.
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