Bye Bob, Hello BoB, WTF BoB?!?

Sacrilege!
I had already written a preview about the new series of Brain of Britain. It was fairly damning, but still hopeful about the Radio 4 quiz show's future. Then, before posting the thing, I listened to the first show. Eh, I thought? Something wasn't right. Was that it? And then I read the Sunday Times article on the whole pathetic story behind the wholesale changes on the show. It all became crystal clear.

Presenter Robert Robinson, producer Richard Edis and Kevin "Jorkins" Ashman formed a reliably brilliant triumvirate on the show, always respectful of its traditions and its audience. There was an unmistakable air of genial bonhomie. Now they are gone. Robert replaced due to ill-health and Richard and Kevin victims of monetary concerns and belt-tightening. The newspaper article explains this sad business, so I won't go into that, except to say "For shame: your treatment of Kevin and Richard marks you out as damnable scoundrels". Yet it's the proof of the pudding, i.e. listening to the show, that ultimately matters. I ate the pudding and had my fill. Savoured it somewhat. Suffice to say, it tasted like gone-off toss. I was in no doubt. The powers that be at the BBC had taken a wrecking ball to one of our national monuments - in its 55th year no less! - and they didn't give a solitary bollock because it saved them money.

First, a fond farewell...
Succumbing to ill health, age and possible transplantation to the northwest proved too much, as it was obviously going to for a man as august and London-stuck as Robinson. It is sad there was no proper goodbye (unless I completely missed something in the radio schedules). No much deserved fanfare and no compilation programme paying tribute to his many witty rejoinders and complete mastery and professionalism when dealing with his contestant brood. Of course, in my day he never stuck around to imbibe consolatory and congratulatory drinks with his contenders after the business side of things was finished with, but still, I will miss him. He pronounced my surname perfectly every time - hooray! And never needed to ask me how. In fact his diction was perfect for the audio-only set-up. It painted pictures for the radio as only he could do. But maybe what I will remember most fondly is his taking a surreptitious swig or two from his hip flask, which in a highly impressive manoeuvre, he would swiftly remove from his briefcase and replace in a matter of seconds. He sure likes a snifter or ten.

Then there was the hair. His combover made the Bobby Charlton classic take on this sign of tragic male vanity look like the epitome of a sensible hairdo. It swirled like a Danish pastry round his cranium in the most amazing manner. No grade zero for him. He had hair left and by God he was going to keep what scant thatch (well, more like a sparse row of follicles) he had and grow it in the most extraordinary fashion in order to fight accusations that he was succumbing inevitable alopecia. I shall miss it almost as much as the great man.

What we've lost
Everything. No, that's going a bit too far. But let's just say they've screwed with the show and broken something that did not need fixing. Shall we start with the myriad failings of the new show?

They've dispensed with the unheard arbiter. A lovely little construct reminiscent of such TV shows as Dad's Army and Rumpole of the Bailey, but one that reminded you that the chief question compiler was himself a brilliant quiz-player worthy of such a position: worthy of finding and testing a real Brain of Britain. Now it is back to the faceless drone school of team-setting. Ugh.

The Einstein question sounded like a direct lift from Wikipedia (and I should know). First paragraph: "Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics 'for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". What an absolute disgrace! How dare the setters from such an august institution be so blatant in their thievery!

And it's not just that. It's the dumbing down that has become obvious. The blandness of what has replaced Kevin's setting. Throwing in questions in later rounds on the Boat Race bridges, Airstrip One, the Furies and, ye gods, who was the "Flanders Mare?" How very very predictable and sad. Hardcore quizzers really spoil themselves doing it for so long: we know what we like and it ain't questions we have heard asked five hundred times over the last ten years (or, ok, maybe a dozen times before in competition).

They've also reverted to a cliched view of the listener-ship. Questions on carols and folk songs - hardly the way to appeal to a younger demographic. The only two vaguely modern questions were on art - the Stuckists and Damien Hirst's autobiography - perhaps betraying the question setters' own interests. All the other questions have been knocked back into the relative, quiz book-driven stone age. Which is just plain sad. Some will love this retrograde step, others like myself will naturally be hugely disappointed by this return to conservatism.

Kevin was a far more interesting setter than he was often given credit for. And what really pisses me off about the Radio 4 statement - "The advantage of a team of question-setters is that there is more of a diversity of questions" - is its pig-headed, cover-our-asses ignorance. It's complete crap. It's bullshit being crammed in our earholes. To suggest that the man who has proved himself time and time again to have by far the largest and widest general knowledge in the country and, arguably maybe, the world over the last decade will provide a question set less colourful and diverse than a bunch of BBC researchers who have been previously twiddling their thumbs is COMPLETELY RETARDED (sorry, Glen). They be chaff compared to Jorkins whoever they may be. It's dig in the ribs and a punch in the gut for the departing Kevin. I'd be red with rage if such a thing was said about me. It's like swapping Kaka for five San Marino players. And yeah, I'll keep using the football analogies.

In the brave new world of Mark Thompson's newly streamlined BBC, the ultimatum offered to Kevin (from what I heard: move to Manchester; do it on far less money etc), for he was the question-setter every serious quizzer would dearly love to have pelting GK posers at them, was utterly appalling considering his stalwart work in setting some wonderful and ultimately classic BoB questions for the last few years: the more obscure, the better because I found they always led me to seek out their provenance, so maybe, just maybe, I could further fathom exactly how our esteemed quiz legend goes about gathering his general knowledge. Whenever he set stuff I hadn't a clue about, let alone the many baffled contenders, I loved it. It was after all a quest to find our nation's finest brain. Extreme baffling was needed to sort out the best from the rest. What we have now pales in comparison. Regressive and boring. Depressing even.

Also is it normal to have less than 50 questions asked in a show? I counted about 48, a count that seemed scant compared to previous years.

They've somehow bleached the programme and made it far less interesting. Ridding it of decorum and character and making it all chummy. No longer the Mr and Mrs of yesteryear, now it is all Dave and Paul (or near enough), doing a little stand-up routine about what they do and where they come from. Why make it like the rest? Or even worse, make it into a quaint lah-dee-dah parlour game? The seriousness and tradition was part of the appeal.

Robert Robinson's absence is felt all the more keenly because he added a whole different aspect to the faceless question-master. His baffling anecdotes and beautifully judged quotes pilfered from showbiz and broadcast history long gone, even if they smelled of the lamp, acted as perfect little breaks in the hurly burly of the competition. I'll miss his theatrical flourishes, a la "that's five in a row!" and his circusmaster-like encouragement for the applause. And what does Peter Snow add? Sniggered comments about Henry VIII divorcing his Mare within six months. Is that all? Jeezus. And he can't seem to stop chuckling. He wants to keep the atmosphere light, but ends up sounding like a bit of a buffoon. He also smacks of the utility defender, the boring Jack Charlton-type. No artistry at all. Just another cog in the soulless machine.

The problem is the more I ponder what has happened, the angrier the words that I type become. But go on I shall...

Why?
Yet this is the typical treatment that broadcasters, always looking to renovate and, yuk, innovate, hand out to long-running shows. They look as if they are stagnating, mostly by dint of their apparently ageing audience and the programme's sheer age, so they cut funding and try to do it on the cheap. The quality declines, audiences get pissed off and drift away and suddenly they use it as an excuse to axe the thing. Silly, silly bastards.

It is lucky that the far calmer waters of radio allow such shows to survive far longer than they would on TV, but these current changes to the BoB make-up are bad news. However great formats may take hits, they may even get cancelled, but as in the case of UC and Mastermind they return because they are ultimately brilliant at what they do. Nothing better could be created to replace either, and nothing will replace the sublime simplicity of the old BoB. I wonder if the broadcasting powers that be will learn this silly lesson with the seemingly unfashionable quiz show and retain BoB for many years to come. Until Armageddon will be about long enough to satisfy me and, I suspect, many other viewers. And so, long may it run ... in the traditional form with better questions and a better team, the one that had been in place, organising it. I hope people get as monumentally pissed off with the new version as I have. I speak the word "revolt" and speak it loudly. I hope the wind carries the word to every corner of the land, so everyone asks: Mr producer Paul Bajoria, what have you done?