Pub Quiz

For a number of years now we’ve taken part in a weekly quiz in a local pub. We do pretty well and occasionally win. The chap that runs this quiz runs a number of other quizzes and a few times he’s held a Champions’ League night where top teams from all of his pubs come together to compete. We do well enough to be invited to these nights.

So we weren’t too surprised to be invited to one a couple of months ago. The difference with this one was that it was being filmed by Channel 4. According to  the quizmaster, they had been in touch with him as they wanted to make a documentary about the rise in pub quizzes in London. They had asked him to put on a night that they could film. He got together about thirty of his best teams and Channel 4 added in another couple of teams – one of which was one man one his own.

We turned up and were given a release to sign. My wife pointed out that it was a bit more comprehensive than we had expected. It basically said that we agreed not to tell anyone anything about anything that happened that night. She said something about how she could understand why people like Derren Brown might need a form like that, but that it seemed a bit over the top for a documentary about pub quizzes.

But anyway we signed it and for that reason I’m not going to tell you anything about what the Channel 4 people did that night. I’ll just say that it was a standard Champions’ League pub quiz and we really didn’t do very well.

Our friend the quizmaster got in touch on Friday and said he’d heard that the programme was going to be transmitted this coming Friday (May 2nd). I had a quick look at the Channel 4 listings for that night and couldn’t see anything that looked like a documentary about pub quizzes, so I asked if he knew what the title of the programme was.

He replied that it was the new series of Derren Brown’s “Trick or Treat”.

So I shall be watching on Friday with great excitement.

Update: The Telegraph has an article explaining what is going on.

Updated update: No idea why the Telegraph have taken that story down. They’ve replaced it with this similar one.

2 comments

  1. It was a very well made program, quite exciting and interesting.I was completely unconvinced by the memorising ‘method’ though. It was a trick, as anyone who has ever skim read while cramming for exams will tell you.

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