Ask Jack Waley-Cohen where his obsession with quizzing began and he doesn’t hesitate. It is, he says, down to his mother. She used to read him quiz books instead of bedtime stories and when the Waley-Cohens set off on long car journeys, those in the back knew they wouldn’t be allowed to nod gently off to sleep.
“I have memories of her firing quiz questions at us from the front,” says the 41 year old.
“My brother and I loved it, although I’m not sure about the rest of the family.”
All of which goes some way to explaining how Waley-Cohen became the question editor on Only Connect. Hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell, the most baffling quiz show on TV has become one of the most unlikely hits of lockdown, regularly attracting around three million viewers a week, most of whom never get a single question right.
Make the connections:
Jack Waley-Cohen’s challenge
- st nd rd
- 13-19 One of the X-Men Trained Japanese assassin
- Elephants Diplodocus and Triceratops Diplodocus
- 7 in Ireland 6 in Russia 5 in France
- January 10th-25th February 6th-25th March 13th-8th
- That place This place Before
- Val Kilmer George Clooney Christian Bale
- Close window Cut Redo
- Parietal Clavicles Patellae
- Why Berillium? Why Carbon? Why Gold?
Answers at bottom of the story
“It is the very definition of a slow burn,” says Waley-Cohen, who studied experimental psychology at Oxford University before settling on a career playing with people’s minds. “It has been going for 12 years and while the ratings have grown steadily they jumped during the first lockdown when we all had a lot more time to scroll through the TV channels.
“Those who stumbled across the show have stayed and I think that’s because it has a sense of fun that isn’t a natural part of the appeal of other Monday night quiz favourites – University Challenge and Mastermind.”
It’s true that few other quiz shows can boast a long-running gag about Michael Portillo as part of their appeal. Much of the show’s quirkiness comes from Coren Mitchell. She has an obvious love for the show and according to Waley-Cohen cares about the quality of the questions – not a given for a quiz show host.
However, what really keeps Only Connect viewers coming back for more is the vain hope they might solve the notoriously difficult ‘wall’ before the contestants or answer a question in the sequences round after just the first clue.
“I want the teams to get the questions right, but I want them to get it right with a struggle,” admits Waley-Cohen. “My favourite ever Only Connect question is actually one I didn’t write. It was what comes next after wheat, sett, cease. The answer is ‘sank’ because if you say them out loud it’s counting backwards from eight in French. It’s not quantum physics or some obscure Wagnerian reference. It’s perfect, because when the answer is revealed it seems so obvious, but the journey to it is not straightforward.”
Waley-Cohen, who also happened to be a contestant on the pilot for Only Connect, has just finished signing off the questions for the next series. They are shrouded in secrecy, but he is willing to give a glimpse into how his quiz brain ticks.
“I came across a great work of literature recently which I hadn’t realised was split into multiple volumes, so if I can find another three of those that might work,” he says.
“And there’s another I’m thinking about around words that all look the same but are pronounced differently. That’s the great thing about the show, no topic is off limits.”
Waley-Cohen learnt his trade partly by being a serial quiz contestant, who once picked as a specialist subject the history of British quiz shows. Among his claims to fame are winning three episodes of Countdown, triumphing on The Weakest Link and being the original Richard Osman as the stats man on the short-lived Totally Top Trumps.
“It was on Challenge TV, which I didn’t have at the time, so I’ll never know whether I was any good at it,” he says, adding his only real regret is never making it to the hot seat of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
“I have been on some great quiz shows which never made it beyond two or three series and whatever anyone tells you it’s impossible to tell which are going to be hits and which will flop.”
That insider knowledge is why he has some sympathy for those behind Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance. Launched last month in a primetime BBC1 slot, it haemorrhaged viewers and was ridiculed for its ramshackle set and convoluted rules.
“It’s incredibly tough,” he adds. “Only Connect launched on BBC4 and had a few years to find its feet. People forget, but shows such as Pointless and The Chase, whose brilliance we all now take for granted, weren’t brilliant in the beginning.
“Quiz shows are relatively cheap to produce, but finding a format that’s not just different to what has gone before, but has a great host and gets the right slot, also involves a huge amount of luck.”
Waley-Cohen runs a company that organises corporate quiz events which has recently seen a rash of Covid-inspired team names such as “Professor Quiz Whitty” and the “Wuhan Clan” and has just gone back into the studio to film the next series of Only Connect.
“If I have learnt anything about the show from Twitter it’s that everyone thinks they are amazing at the final missing vowels round,” he says.
“I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but you have to be even better to do well under the pressure of competing against another team and the buzzer.
“There might not be big prize money on Only Connect, just a trophy and a slightly awkward presentation ceremony, but for the teams who do triumph – and I promise this year’s final is a real nail-biter – the winning alone is enough.”
And for the show’s new found fans, being able to lose themselves in a gentle and unashamed celebration of geekery, discovering Only Connect might just be one of the few upsides in a year when we were all forced to stay at home.
The final of Only Connect is on BBC2 Monday 29 March at 8pm
Answers
Answers
- th [1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th]
- Marine tortoises [the clues all indicate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]
- Blue Whale [This is the sequence of specimens that have occupied the Natural History Museum’s famous Hintze Hall]
- USA [These are the lengths of presidential terms of office in these countries, in decreasing lengths of terms. Accept any country that has a 4 -year presidential term – there are several]
- April 1st-12th [the numbers are the positions of the first and last letters in the alphabet of each month. January: J is 10th; Y is 25th in alphabet.]
- About (or anything that can mean ‘Re’). [The clues indicate: There, Here, Ere…taking off the first letter of each time]
- Ben Affleck [order in which they played the role of Batman in films]
- Undo [these are typical computer keyboard shortcuts for Ctrl +W, X, Y, Z]
- Phanlages [scientific names for bones found in Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes]
- Why Selenium? [Because…if you take the chemical symbols for these elements you get Be, C, Au, Se: Why? BeCAuSe]
