Mastermind: New host Clive Myrie on filming in Northern Ireland

The quiz show returns on Monday night with the most recent episodes having been filmed at BBC’s Belfast headquarters during lockdown.

It meant that Clive couldn’t get out and about as much as he’d have liked, but he is looking forward to coming over to NI again next month.

He said: “We’ve filmed 28 episodes so far.

“I’ll be back in Northern Ireland in September.

“Covid rules meant that I was confined to the hotel when I wasn’t filming.

“If one of us had got Covid it would have shut down the whole production.

“I had some good friends who came over to the hotel and we had some nice dinners. Otherwise it was work, work, work – 8am starts, finishing about 7pm. It was pretty intense but I loved it.”

One of those friends that Clive met up with was NI cameraman David McIlveen.

He said: “I’ve worked with some of the best cameramen in the world over the last 30 years. Guys who have won multiple awards. Davy I worked with for the first time in Belfast when I was doing a story on the election in 2019 in Enniskillen.

“He’s a great guy, an amazing shooter with an eye for detail. We agreed at the end of that shoot if anything came up let’s do it again. The opportunity came up to get into a hospital to do some Covid filming.

Davy is proud of his roots in NI, he’s a keen sailor and a fantastic guy. I met up with him for dinner when I was over shooting Mastermind. Hopefully we’ll be working together again soon on news.”

Clive is a journalist of 30 years experience. His first paid role was as a junior reporter at Radio Bristol in the 1980s.

As well as being a BBC newsreader, he is known for his work as a foreign correspondent.

Clive said: “There’s a bit of gravitas from presenting the news and covering warzones as a foreign correspondent, but also from my numerous appearances on Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You, Celebrity Antiques Road Show, there’s a lighter side to my personality as well.

“I hope that all that persona that is Clive Myrie, the hard stuff and the light stuff, is carried over into the Mastermind studio and that will inform how people relate to me and relate to the programme.”

Asked what his specialist subject on Mastermind would be, Clive said: “Like most journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things, though the level of depth might be lacking for Mastermind on a number of subjects. If I had to choose, I’m a big fan of the opera – Operas of Puccini might work. I have also been a student of American politics for a long time having been a correspondent in the States – American presidency might be one for me. Also, maybe Manchester City – my favourite football team.”

Quiz show was brainchild of ex-RAF gunner

Mastermind, which will be 50 years old next year, was the brainchild of TV producer Bill Wright, a former RAF gunner.

Bill drew on his wartime experience as a Prisoner of War in Germany of answering three questions - name, rank and number - to create the ‘Mastermind’ ritual of contestants being asked their name, occupation and specialist subject.

The first ever edition of ‘Mastermind’ was recorded at Liverpool University and aired on BBC One in 1972.

The show was hosted by former journalist Magnus Magnusson, a formidable Scot of Icelandic parentage who was billed as the show’s “Interrogator”.

Clive Myrie takes over from John Humphrys who had been at the helm on Mastermind for almost two decades: “It’s big shoes to fill with John, he’s a man that a greatly admire that I’ve known for a long time since I was a junior reporter on the Today programme and he was a presenter.

“I felt huge pressure taking on the role, half a century old or not.

“Mastermind is part of the televisual furniture of British television. That’s pressure itself.”

He added: “It’s an established format that has been around for 50 years. It’s lasted and it’s worked. There are not many television programmes around globally that have survived half a century.”

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