Last night's episode of Eggheads marked the debut of Lisa Thiel as the latest member of the Eggheads team. After the departure of Daphne, Eggheads seemingly wanted a female face to replace her and seemingly the story goes that after Lisa's impressive performance on Revenge of the Egghead, she was offered a place on the team.
Regardless of her quizzing background or the suitably of other top level female quizzers for the position (which tends to dominate the social media discussions on the subject) I wish Lisa the best of luck! She certainly made a strong start.....
What do readers think of her appointment as the new Egghead?
Hi Dan,
ReplyDeletein her interview for Life After Mastermind I asked Lisa for her thoughts about aking over from Daphne, and this was her reply : -
"Let’s get this absolutely straight – I am not, repeat not, ‘replacing’ Daphne in any way. You cannot, by definition, replace a one-off. Daphne made her first appearances on TV quiz shows before I was even born, and her level of performance is a benchmark to which all quizzers, particularly female quizzers, can and should aspire.
I understand that the idea of a like-for-like replacement will be people’s natural assumption, because Daphne and I both happen to be women. But I don’t think anyone expected Dave to be exactly the same type of quizzer, or have the same type of personality, as CJ when he arrived to fill that particular vacancy. So from that point of view it’s basically sexist for people to think that I’m a straight swap for Daphne.
From what I’ve been told by various people connected with Eggheads, the idea of finding a new female Egghead had been around for some time, and while a lot of people (including a large number known, I suspect, to this blog’s author) were considered, the producers obviously had quite a specific blueprint in mind. I think it’ll be immediately obvious when I appear on screen that the last thing they were thinking about was finding another Daphne, even if such a thing were possible."
I'll be honest, I can think of one off the top of my head whom I'm sure would have been considered, but that's really by the by. I'll be honest, I haven't caught Lisa's performances yet. However, what I can tell you from my own experience is that she is honest, open, friendly and gracious - that's not a bad recommendation at all.