TOWARDS the end of the first programme of The Litmus Test, chairman
Mike Scott explains that the pace will now quicken in the ‘time-honoured
tradition of quizzes of this sort’. And that just about sums up the episodes
I have heard. They are radio quizzes in the time-honoured tradition of quizzes
of this sort; only the subjects have been changed . . .
Thus we drag in all the old familiar formats. There is the apparently
spontaneous bit of levity, as contestants are awarded points for inventing
and naming a new element: harmonium, a metal which sounds nice when struck
but has absolutely no practical use. Or, in episode two, for repealing a
law of nature; Arthur Rimmer’s proposal to abolish Murphy’s Law was one
of the brightest moments I heard. There are tenuous musical questions; where
gardening quizzes have to make do with the Flight of the bumblebee, we had
Holst’s Planets. And there is a somewhat haphazard scoring system, whereby
it is never clear how or why points are awarded; if scoring isn’t serious,
why bother at all? Does any of this matter? It depends on what you want
from your wireless. Entertainment and edification, in that order, are what
The Litmus Test claims to offer.
Surveys tell us that Britons are amazingly ignorant of, and amazingly
hungry for, science, but I don’t think The Litmus Test will banish either
ignorance or satisfy hunger. A question about Archbishop Ussher got his
dates and timings wrong (without actually naming him), and an answer about
African bees perpetuated the myth of the killer bee as hitch-hiker, while
pooh-poohing the fact that African bees have killed several people. I did
learn that Borodin was a professional chemist and doctor, facts that, assailed
by doubts, I checked and found to be correct. Science programmes and quizzes
have a duty to get things right, a science quiz more than doubly so. Cute
questions and long rambling answers just make the job more difficult, unless
the chairman is a prodigious polymath.
As for entertainment, I really don’t know. I wasn’t particularly entertained,
but then, I am not entertained by other ‘light-hearted’ quizzes either.
I like my quizzes serious, and I suspect the rest of the audience does too.
Brain of Britain, Mastermind, Connoisseur and others of that ilk have enthusiastic
(and in some cases quite large) followings. I surmise that that is because
experts exposing their expertise is entertainment enough. Someone, somewhere,
clearly doesn’t agree. Why else would we have this unending stream of strange
quiz shows, most of which are not quizzes at all but chat shows in disguise?
Most of them work well enough, and pass half an hour or so without too much
difficulty. Certainly, The Litmus Test is not a disaster. But as someone
who has been involved in several incarnations of natural history quizzes,
there is one question I would like to ask of the broadcasters: Why aren’t
there more simple, straightforward, tests of specialised or general knowledge?
No conferring, and considerably more than a 10-point bonus for a correct
answer.
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Jeremy Cherfas is leaving New Scientist to become European correspondent
of Science.
