Beat the Brain
Contents |
Host
John Craven
Co-host
"The Brain" (performed by Josie Lawrence)
Broadcast
Over the Top Productions and Objective Productions for BBC Two, 11 May 2015 to present
Synopsis
Teams of four take on challenges that involve different parts of the brain.
Six different aspects of brain power, to be precise. Logic, observation, multi-tasking, orientation, language, and memory. Four of these six areas will be tested in each show.
The tasks are all visual responses: memorise a pattern of coloured lights, spell a word backwards, or work out which of these are left hands and which are right hands.
Which is left, what's right?
Players are gently welcomed by the host, might get to banter with The Brain, and warm up with an example question from The Brain. This helps understand what the challenge is about.
Each team-member will take one zone, in which there are two different challenges. Each challenge has three parts, and each part correctly answered earns three seconds to the "brain bank".
After four rounds, the team will have some seconds - typically 30-60 seconds. The time they earned is free, and if each player can answer two questions correctly in the time, they'll win £3000. After that time, the jackpot starts to drop, at £25 per second. After two further minutes, the money is exhausted and the team leaves with nothing.
Challenges in the final come from the games seen already seen, so there's no need to explain very much. The players take the questions, answer them as quickly as possible, and hope to win money. Most shows end with a decent climax: even with 30 seconds to go and three questions remaining, there's still hope that there might be some money won.
The set is minimalist and functional. Or cheap.
Two particular highlights from this show. First, the character of The Brain is fully-formed, Josie Lawrence voices it live, with sharp and witty ripostes to the contestants. Also, the questions are also a cut above the normal trivia questions. Not only are they not trivia, we found them easy to follow and sufficiently challenging to force the viewer to play along.
Trivia
The hands above are left, left, right.
Web links
See also
Beat the Brains is a segment in the long-running radio quiz Brain of Britain.
