A 24-year-old student from St Andrews University has become the youngest ever champion of the BBC quiz show Mastermind.
Jonathon Gibson, currently studying a PhD in Modern History at St Andrews, won by a margin of four points in the Grand Final, scoring a perfect 11 correct answers in his specialist subject, the comedy songwriting duo of Flanders and Swann.
It follows similar perfect scores from the student from Glasgow in his chosen subjects of Agatha Christie’s Poirot in the heat and William Pitt the Younger in the semi-final.
In addition, Jonathon delivered a perfect general knowledge round in his semi-final proving he was a worthy winner of the converted engraved glass bowl trophy.
The win makes Jonathon the youngest ever Mastermind Champion since the show started in 1972 beating Gavin Fuller, the previous youngest who was champion in 1993.
‘I don’t know how I did it’
Jonathon said the win felt “absolutely incredible” and “like a dream come true”.
He added: “That’s definitely not what I would have expected.
“The fact that I was able to increase my score every time, I don’t honestly really know how I did that.
“They [parents] have been so supportive to me and I’m just really looking forward to getting home and telling them about it and seeing what celebration meal my mum’s going to make for me.
“The fact that I’ve won as the only Scottish finalist means a huge amount, because despite the confusing evidence of my accent, I am fiercely proud to be Scottish.
“I’m really proud to demonstrate that Scottish quizzers and quizzers from outside of London exist and can beat the rest.
“Having now broken the record as the youngest-ever winner of Mastermind, in a way, I kind of hope and expect that my record won’t stand for all that long because there were so many incredible quizzers my age and younger who are coming up at the moment.
“It’s time that the world knows about them and understands that our generation is coming through.
“And I absolutely want this victory to inspire, if possible, quizzers of my age and younger to give it a go and prove themselves, because we can win.”
The Grand Final was also John Humphrys’ last as host of Mastermind having presented 735 episodes and asked more than 80,000 questions during his time with the show.
News reader and journalist, Clive Myrie, a regular presenter of BBC News at Six and Ten, is to take over as as the show’s helm when the new series is filmed in Belfast later this year.
Jonathon Gibson delivered a perfect general knowledge round in his semi-final – how many can you answer?
1 Leipzig and Stuttgart are cities in which European country?
2 What’s the first name of the novelist son of the author, Kingsley Amis? His books include Money, London Fields and Time’s Arrow.
3 BSL is a method of communication used mainly by people who are deaf or have impaired hearing. What does BSL stand for?
4 Which musical family from Ogden, in the American state of Utah, had their first UK top ten single in 1972 with Crazy Horses?
5 Which cookery writer and former Great British Bake Off judge described her award of a damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2020 as “the icing on the cake”?
6 In chemistry, a solid that’s dissolved in liquid to form a solution is known as the solute. What’s the corresponding term for the liquid?
7 Which costume designer was nominated for 35 Academy Awards during her film career, and in the 1970s designed the uniforms for women members of the US coastguard?
8 What’s the name of the Los Angeles baseball team who won the 2020 World Series?
9 The shipping forecast area in the North Sea directly between Tyne and Thames shares its name with an estuary in eastern England. Which estuary?
10 What a staple of Italian cooking is a fine maize flour which, when it’s cooked in salted water, can be served soft, like a porridge or set and cut into slices? Its name comes from the Latin for pearl barley.
11 The actress Emma Corrin joined the cast of the fourth series of the television drama The Crown, which began in 2020. Which member of the family does she play?
12 The word genera used in the taxonomic classification of plants and animals is plural of what word?
13 In 1803, America bought about 828,000 square miles of land, including most of the Mississippi Valley, from France for just a few cents an acre. The transaction is known by what name?
14 In 2020, which politician was elected to serve a second term as Prime Minister of New Zealand?
15 The name of the title character in a play by Moliere is sometimes used as a word for a religious hypocrite – What’s the title of the play?
16 The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight and Everybody Hurts are tracks from the album Automatic For The People, which topped the UK chart in 1992. The album is by which American band?
17 Which German political philosopher and revolutionary married his childhood sweetheart, Jenny von Westphalen, in 1843, after an engagement that lasted seven years?
Answers
1 Germany
2 Martin
3 British Sign Language
4 The Osmonds
5 Mary Berry
6 Solvent
7 Edith Head
8 Dodgers
9 Humber
10 Polenta
11 Diana
12 Genus
13 Louisiana Purchase
14 Ardern
15 Tartuffe
16 REM
17 Marx
