Quiz the Nation IS BACK!

By | August 3, 2017

Well here’s an intriguing turn-up for the books, national interactive pub quiz Quiz the Nation looks like it’s returning in September after a two-and-a-half year hiatus.

The previous version with TV’s Gordon Burns was broadcast on a community channel on satellite and used your phone mic to work out where you are in the broadcast and display questions on your phone accordingly. It was fun, but it was also rather flawed and we suspect too exploitable with cunning use of Sky+. Also it felt like it would be quite bad value for money to take part in (even if most of the initial episodes were free to play).

We’re really interested to see how the tech has developed several years on, and if they can get more pubs to sign up to it.

Bother’s Bar readers did very well out of the initial run winning thousands, and not having to cheat to do it, thanks to the game’s low install base. Who knows what the new one has in store?

19 thoughts on “Quiz the Nation IS BACK!

    1. Danny Kerner

      Across six weeks each episode features two contestants battling it out across four rounds of rhyming conundrums in the hope of making it to the final round and the chance to win a holiday.

      But the contestants are not alone in their poetic endeavours, four celebrities, making up two teams, are at hand to help (or hinder). The hopeful contestants go head to head in quick fire animated rhyming round, at the end of which the one with the most points gets first pick of the two celebrity teams.

      What follows is three rounds of hilarity! First the teams must Mime the Rhyme, with one celebrity describing a well-known name and the other miming a rhyming action in the hope their contestant guesses the rhyme.

      Next they move on to Rhymewatch as the teams attempt to identify all the rhyming pairs within a short celebrity-led film, before it’s time for News at Len where our host reads out four fictional news stories and the teams guess the rhyming headline that goes with each story.

      After the four rounds the contestant with the most points goes on to play Rhyme Against Time, the final round where they attempt to solve six 3-part rhymes against the clock in order to win the holiday. The losing contestant doesn’t go home empty handed though, they leave with the coveted consolation prize of a Pen from Len.

      Reply
    1. Callum J

      Channel 4’s synopsis:

      “Contestants try to win £25,000 in Noel Edmonds’ general store, while manager Barry and others ensure there’s never a quiet moment in this craziest of game shows”

      I’m very intruiged about this show, sounds very different.

      Reply
      1. Matt Clemson

        Strictly speaking, a show headed by Noel Edmonds where one of the conceits is making a decision whether to swap absolutely *should* be followed up by a show set in a store, but it really ought to be hosted by Mike Read.

        Reply
      2. Brig Bother Post author

        It’s been sitting on a shelf for a while which suggests not much confidence.

        I too am interested, it’s been pitched as a gameshow/sit-com crossover. It’s certainly going to be weird, the question is will it work? Have they pitched the weirdness correctly? Will Noel ever not be on television’s cutting edge?

        I’m pulling for it, I’m hoping it has similar voice to Avanti un Altro. Whether it succeeds is questionable.

        Reply
          1. Brig Bother Post author

            He’s mates with Angelos Epithemiou which might give an indication of what this might be like.

  1. Clive of Legend

    Going slightly mad here, do any of y’all recall a tourist attraction thing that invlovrd going through a series of rooms with challenges you had to complete to proceed? Swear I saw it here a few years back but can’t find hide nor hair of it nor remember enough details to please Google.

    Reply
      1. Clive of Legend

        Nora Borg was it, thank you! Knew I was on the right track googling IKEA furniture

        Reply
  2. Scousegirl

    Yesterday’s (4th Aug) Question Jury had some of the dimmest contestants ever. One question was ‘In what language was Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot written?’
    The four people in that round (one a teacher) had never heard of either author or title and thought Beckett was probably an ‘Old English’ writer and would have written in Latin!
    Scary!

    Reply
    1. Andrew Sullivan

      Let’s face it, Luke said a lot of stuff over the past week that didn’t make a lick of sense 😀

      Reply
    2. David B

      Quite a bad question if was phrased like that, since “Waiting for Godot” is strictly his English language translation of his original French play with a different title.

      Reply
      1. Andrew Sullivan

        The full question was ‘In which language was Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting For Godot’ first written and performed?’ and French was the right answer

        Reply

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